1.
Please
pray with me. May the words of my mouth
and the meditation of our hearts be pleasing in Your sight, O Lord, our Rock,
and our Redeemer. Amen. This is the second in a series of sermons on
how God makes himself known to us. God makes himself known through natural
revelation and special revelation. Natural revelation is evident in both the
natural order and our human conscience. But it’s inadequate to serve God’s love
and forgiveness. That comes only through two special revelations—his Son,
Jesus, and the Holy Scriptures. The
message today is taken from Romans 2:1-16 and is entitled, “What Do You Know About God—Through Your Conscience.” Dear brothers
and sisters in Christ. (Read the text from Romans 2 from the
bulletin)
2.
Ravi Zacharias, a Christian
apologist, once had an interaction with a student at the University of
Nottingham in England. As soon as Ravi finished one of his lectures, this
student shot up from his seat and blurted out, "There is too much evil in this world; therefore, there cannot be a God."
Ravi asked him to remain standing and answer a few questions. Ravi said, "If there is such a thing as evil, aren't you
assuming there is such a thing as good?" He paused, reflected, and
said, "I guess so." "If
there is such a thing as good," Ravi countered, you must affirm a moral law on the basis of which to differentiate
between good and evil." He then
reminded him of the debate between the philosopher Frederick Copleston and the
atheist Bertrand Russell. At one point in the debate, Copleston said, "Mr. Russell, you do believe in good and bad,
don't you?" Russell answered, "Yes I do." "How do
you differentiate between them?" challenged Copleston. Russell
shrugged his shoulders and said, "The
same way I differentiate between yellow and blue." Copleston
graciously responded and said, "But
Mr. Russell, you differentiate between yellow and blue by seeing, don't you?
How do you differentiate between good and bad?" Russell, with all of
his genius still within reach, gave the most vapid answer he could have given: "On the basis of feeling-what
else?" Ravi Zacharias then said to the student that, “Mr. Copleston was a kinder gentleman than
many others. The appropriate "logical kill" for the moment would have
been, Mr. Russell, in some cultures the love their neighbors; in others they
eat them, both on the basis of feeling. Do you have any preference?"
3.
Ravi then returned to his
questioning the student in Nottingham: "When
you say there is evil, aren't you admitting there is good? When you accept the
existence of goodness, you must affirm a moral law on the basis of which to
differentiate between good and evil. But when admit to a moral law, you must
posit a moral lawgiver. That, however, is who you are trying to disprove and
not prove. For if there is no moral lawgiver, there is no moral law. If there
is no moral law, there is no good. If there is no good, there is no evil. What
then is your question?"
4.
St.
Paul here in Romans chapter 2 says that we may think we are decent. We try hard
not to hurt anyone, we’re polite, we donate to good causes, we even obey the
speed limit—most of the time. But when we compare our life with the perfect
standard in the Bible, we quickly see that we don’t measure up. We’re not the
people God wants us to be. This passage
from Romans tells us that we know there’s
a standard for the way we live. You and I are acquainted with that standard
because we read the Bible. We’ve heard God’s own word on how he created us to
live. We now are in a similar position as the Jewish people of the OT, because
they had received God’s Law through their prophets. But in Romans 2:14-15. Paul
says that everyone, even those who
did not have God’s revealed Law as the Jews did, has some knowledge of God’s
standard for human life. That standard has been written on the human heart.
5.
God
holds each person morally accountable for what he does. This passage shows how
God does that and still is fair and just. Although everyone may not know the
specific details given in the Old and New Testaments, everyone is accountable
because of the moral sense that God has placed in the human heart. That sense
is expressed in the conscience God has given everyone. For those without the
special revelation of the Law found in the Bible, conscience bears witness and
holds them accountable. Conscience is the second part of God’s natural
revelation. God reveals his existence, his power, and his majesty in the
natural world he created. He reveals much of his Law through the human
conscience.
6.
Because
we each have some sense of the people we’re supposed to be, God is just and
fair to hold us responsible. Murderers know that murder is wrong. Liars know
they should tell the truth. Their conscience tells them so. God is fair and
just when he judges those whose own conscience condemn them.
7.
To
condemn is part of what a conscience does. It’s the part that gets the most
attention. We seldom notice our conscience when it affirms us in doing what’s
right. Rather, it shows up more noticeably when we do something wrong. It doesn’t bother us until we do something
that we know is wrong, then there it is—doing what Paul says in verse 15,
“accusing” us. Mostly it accuses us. That’s how we know we have a conscience.
It’s the aching in the pit of our stomach that points out that we either have
done, or are about to do, something wrong. Each of us has probably experienced
that feeling, because we have a conscience—a God-implanted moral sense.
8.
So,
the message of this part of natural revelation, the moral sense, is often bad
news. God intended it that way. It’s his built-in signal to us that our lives
fall short of what they should be. He meant each of us to know that, whether
we’ve read the Ten Commandments from the Bible or not.
9.
In
Romans 2 Paul is concerned with two issues. He wants to deal with those who
have had God’s Law revealed to them in Scripture. He’s worried that they think
they are better than others because they have received that revelation. He also
wants to answer the concern that God condemns other people unjustly, people who
never knew the Law and so supposedly had no idea they were sinning. The natural
revelation of conscience answers that problem. But the main issue is to show
that everyone is in the same moral situation. Verse 12 says God judges those
who sin not knowing the Law, as well as those who sin knowing it. Paul means
those who have the natural revelation of conscience and those who have been given God’s Law in Scripture. Verse 13 says
it doesn’t matter how we learn the Law, what matters is that we know the Law.
We are not favored by God because we heard the Law directly from God in
Scripture.
10.
God
wants humans to know that we are lawbreakers. That’s why he gave us a
conscience. But he knew that a conscience can be ignored. It can also be faulty
as when a person believes a false standard of right or wrong. That’s why God
also spoke his Law in the Scripture that cannot be mistaken, and cannot be
silenced. In both ways, he brings us under his judgment and holds us
accountable for how we live. What matters is doing the Law, not just knowing
it. And none of us does it all.
11.
Mother
Teresa was a good player on the courts of life. She made almost everyone else
look bad in comparison. She lived a kind of goodness that is rare in this
world. But how would she measure up in God’s eyes? If Mother Teresa were asked
about her own goodness, what do you think she would have said? No doubt she
would have denied that she is good. She would point to her own sins. Why? Because Mother Teresa would compare herself
not to other people, not even to what her conscience tells her, but to the one
life in which God’s Law was both perfectly known and done. She would compare
herself to Jesus and she too would fall short. So would we. No one measures up
to Jesus.
12.
This
is where God intended morality to bring us. Whether conscience or written Law,
natural revelation or Scripture, he intended that knowing the requirements for
good living would bring us to realize that we can’t do it. Then, by his grace,
we would come face to face with the One who can and has done it for us. Jesus himself said that he came to perfectly
fulfill God’s Law. In Matthew 5, he told his disciples to look at the most
righteous people they knew, the scribes and the Pharisees. Then he told them
that if they wanted to enter God’s kingdom, to measure up to God’s standard,
their righteousness needed to be more than that of the scribes and Pharisees.
Can that be possible? I wonder if some thought, “Why should we even try to do that?”
Why not give up? Why not just have fun, do what we want to do, and not
worry about being good people? That would be fine if this were just a game
of football or baseball. But we are talking about our lives, our souls, our
standing with God. It would be awful to have to give up that game.
13.
We
don’t have to give up, because there is another thought hidden in verse 16. “God will judge men’s secrets through Jesus
Christ, as my gospel declares.” The word “Gospel” means “Good News.”
There’s more to being judged “through
Jesus” than the bad news of our failures. God is going to judge us through Jesus. When he looks at you and
me to see how our lives measure up he’s going to look at us through his Son. When he sees us, he will
see Jesus Christ first of all.
14.
We
know about “rose-colored glasses.” Looking
through them gives the whole world a rosy color. They hide everything ugly.
When God judges you and me, he’s not just going to put on rose-colored glasses
to overlook our sins. He’s going to look at us through Jesus. The blood Jesus
shed on the cross is not just going to hide the stains of our sins, it washes
away the stains of our sins. God’s judgment of those who stand behind Jesus
will be to declare them righteous. That declaration makes us righteous through
the blood of Jesus.
15.
You
and I know we are sinners. It doesn’t matter how we learned it. God has made it
known to everyone. What matters is getting rid of that sin. That can only be
done by Jesus Christ. We stand behind Jesus. That’s where God wants to see us.
That’s how God wants to judge us—through the grace of Christ. Let’s confess our
sin, and take up our place behind the blood of the Son of God. When God sees us
through Jesus we win the game of life.
Amen.
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