Judgement

I would like to turn with you please to the book of Romans chapter 2, the book of Romans chapter 2, and we're going to start reading at verse 1. Romans 2 and verse 1, Therefore thou art inexcusable, O man, whosoever thou art that judges. For wherein thou judgest another, thou condemnest thyself. For thou that judgest doest the same things.

But we are sure that the judgment of God is according to truth against them which commit such things. And thinkest thou this, O man, that judgest them which do such things, and doest the same, that thou shalt escape the judgment of God? Or despisest thou the riches of his goodness and forbearance and long-suffering, not knowing that the goodness of God leads thee to repentance? But after thy hardness and impenitent heart treasurest up unto thyself wrath against a day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God. Who will render, that is to pay back, to every man according to his deeds.

To them who by patient continuance and well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, eternal life. But unto them that are contentious and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness. Now the words that follow express the judgment of God that's going to fall upon them.

Indignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish upon every soul of man that doeth evil, of the Jew first and also of the Gentile. But glory, honor, and peace to every man that worketh good, to the Jew first and also to the Gentile. For there is no respect of persons with God.

For as many as have sinned without law shall also perish without law. As many as have sinned in the law shall be judged by the law. For not the hearers of the law are just before God, but the doers of the law shall be justified.

For when the Gentiles which have not the law do by nature the things contained in the law, these having not the law are a law unto themselves, which 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. In a day when God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ according to my gospel." Now I have enjoyed recently in going through the book of Romans to see that in the first few chapters we have God calling his witnesses.

It's like a court scene and one witness after another is called to the witness stand and bears witness to God and his truthfulness, the very existence of God, the character of God, the power of God, his justice, but also witnesses about us. Witnesses about our sinfulness, about our failure before God, and so in this passage that I have read he's really looking at something that we do all the time and we can't seem to avoid doing it. What's that? Judging.

Judging other people. There's hardly a day goes by that we don't say about somebody or about something that's wrong and we seem to have a fascination with following court cases and I could name you a number of them that have been very much in the news over the last few months and so on. There's just one after another.

We seem to have a, you know, maybe an unhealthy fascination with the evils that go on and the trials in court and we especially get stirred up, angry, upset when someone who seems to be so obviously guilty gets off, escapes punishment. It stirs something within us and this passage is saying this. Whoever you are that is able to look at evil in another person and to judge it, you are condemning yourself.

You are leaving yourself with no excuse before God to say, I didn't know. I didn't know that this was wrong. I didn't realize that this was sin.

This passage is saying that over and over, day by day, as we live, we judge other people and yet we end up doing either the same thing or similar things in our own lives and so we are self-condemned by our own capacity and habit of judging other people and conscience, as I have been speaking about it through the day, is really that inner court within us that it seems must pass some judgment upon whatever happens and so our conscience, I might have mentioned this already today, but our conscience is like God's window on our soul. Our conscience, by its very habit of evaluating, of judging, should be the reminder that there is someone greater who will judge. Now, I remember hearing a documentary just recently in the last few months, and of course, again, people who are in the evolutionary framework of thinking, they're always trying to explain the human realities in terms of evolutionary development and so they set out to try to discover where does this moralizing come from? Where does this capacity, this ability to judge right and wrong, when does it develop? Where does it come from? And the conclusion they came to was very startling for them.

They actually discovered that little infants as young as eight months old judged good and bad and they had quite a, you know, unique way of creating the situation for a little child that can't even say anything yet, to be able to express approval or disapproval, like or dislike, as they saw something that was either good and kind and loving or something that was bad and harsh. And they actually detected this. Not only did they make a difference between somebody or something that was doing something nice and somebody that was doing something bad, wrong, hurtful, but they actually approved of that one being punished who was doing the wrong.

And they recognized this is written right into our beings. God has written it upon our hearts. And so this passage is saying, you and I live day by day and we are going through life and there is someone that it matters what we do, how we behave, and that is God himself.

And I want to just, I don't want to take too long to express this, but I hope it will be clear to you and I'll try to use it some illustrations that will help us to understand. You know, we're very familiar today with relationship breakups. It used to be that a husband and wife would basically stay together no matter how terrible things were.

But that isn't so true anymore. And we see it over and over again. We're in a relationship that may start out with such loving kindness, such devotion to each other.

You just couldn't imagine there's anyone happier together. Things begin to deteriorate. And this passage is really touching about this idea.

From verse 3 down to verse 5, he is saying that not only do we fail, but we fail over and over again. And we assume, we assume that everything's going to keep continuing on. And you notice what it says in in verse 4, "...or despisest thou the riches of his goodness, and forbearance, and longsuffering." So if I just give you a typical situation, you might have a husband who is getting into alcoholism, going out and partying instead of being home with his wife and family.

And she puts up with it. She still loves him. She still cares.

They've got children. But it's starting to destroy something within her. And this goes on, and it goes on, and it goes on.

And finally there comes a point where that goodness, that goodwill within her, that forbearance, that longsuffering finally collapses. And she walks out. Sometimes, you know, it's very obvious what the problem is, and very sudden catastrophe in a relationship.

Sometimes it's a gradual accumulation. And finally one partner or the other has a breaking point, and they won't take it any longer. And then they reject the person, and they deal with them according to their behavior.

Can I warn you tonight that if you are not saved, every day you are building up a treasury of judgment. You are doing things, behaving in such a way that is offensive to God, and God is forbearing. He is longsuffering.

He is putting up with it. But this passage is warning us. There is a day when God will leave you to your judgment.

He will abandon you to judgment. And as I have pondered what hell is all about, beyond the physical terror, that awful pain that is expressed, there is something more terrible, and that is to be abandoned. In human relationships, sometimes it's the unfaithful one who abandons a faithful friend or partner.

Sometimes it's a child that walks out of the family home, leaving behind broken-hearted parents, breaking their heart. Sometimes it's parents who abandon their children to live their own selfish life. So in human relationships, sometimes it's an unfaithful one who abandons, who forsakes, and sometimes it's the opposite.

But I am tonight concerned about this great reality, that on the cross of Calvary, the Lord Jesus Christ uttered words that belong only on the lips of someone who is consigned to eternal judgment. My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? What does that mean? The withdrawal of the presence of God and the handing over to the fury and the indignation of God's holy hatred and judgment of sin. And the Lord Jesus entered into that experience, and we need to ask ourselves the question, who was at fault? Who was unfaithful? Was he so evil that he was abandoned to this terrible judgment? Or was God somehow unfaithful to his faithful servant, and God proved disloyal and abandoned him to that awful torment? Well, the secret is that neither, neither were unfaithful.

And so what can explain the Lord Jesus on the cross, abandoned to such judgment? You and me. It was me that was being judged at the cross. It was my sin that was being dealt with, that caused this abandonment to judgment.

So if you think about what it really means here, treasuring up to thyself wrath against a day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God, who will pay back to every man according to his deeds? What does it mean to be forsaken? Well, God is love, and it means the withdrawal of that interest, of that care, of that blessing, that desire to bless and honor and care for, that is all withdrawn. And I want to say to you tonight, this is the deepest pain that any person can experience. I have sat beside a wife who had experienced the betrayal of her husband.

The forsakenness was just palpable. She was sitting just quivering, shaking with what it was doing to her, discovering that her husband had left her for someone else, and he never came back. And I've sat with a husband whom I had this sad responsibility to notify that while he was away on a training course, his wife had left him, and she never came back.

To be forsaken is worse than death, and I want to tell you tonight that Christ experienced that awful forsakenness of being treated according to what my sin deserves. He endured that for the purpose that God could righteously, without any reserve, offer to me a complete forgiveness of all of my sins and of a reconciliation to God so that I might enjoy the presence of God forever. One of the most precious promises in our Bible given in Hebrews chapter 13 by the Lord Jesus himself, I will never leave you nor forsake you.

This is the promise of the Savior. He will never abandon us. He will never forsake us.

Romans chapter 2 brings us to this recognition. God is a God of justice. God is a God of judgment, and even though he may wait and wait and wait and wait and continue to show you goodness, continue to show you care, continue to let you know that he loves you if you despise that goodness.

Not realizing that that goodness is intended to soften you, to help you realize that you ought to return to God and find his grace and his salvation. We come to the final conclusion of it, and he says that what you do day by day, the inner witness of your own conscience that weighs and evaluates and judges evil over and over and over again, that stands against you and will stand against you in a day of judgment as a witness that you knew. You knew that what you did was sin.

You knew that it was wrong, that it was wrong to lie, that it was wrong to be dishonest, that it was wrong to hate, it was wrong to do all of these things, to be unfaithful to a relationship, and God himself is your witness. And this is, in one sense, the most terrifying thing to think of for anyone who may ever have to face God in judgment. Malachi chapter 3 warns us I will come near to judgment.

I will come near to judgment, and I will be a swift witness against the adulterer, against the false swearer, and so on and so on. If you could grasp tonight, God has been there with you when you sinned. God has witnessed what you have done.

It's recorded in heaven. Your conscience, day by day, is a faithful witness from the presence of God that there is a greater judge. There is someone who will never be deceived, someone who will never have faulty judgment.

Now one of the things that is touched on in this passage as well is the fact that each one of us are corrupted judges. Have you ever noticed that if somebody does something to you, it's really bad, and you might go over it and over it and over it, rehearse it. Boy, you remember it, and you want them to face punishment for it.

But then you can do something wrong to another person. Doesn't seem nearly so bad. We have a corruption within us because of self-focused interest.

We magnify the sin of others. We minimize our own sin. But this passage says, but we are sure, in verse 2, that the judgment of God is according to truth.

Further down, his judgment is impartial. It doesn't matter who I am, who you are. It doesn't sway his judgment.

He will judge righteously. He will judge according to what is absolutely true. And this passage is saying, in ourselves, we cannot be justified before him.

We will face his judgment. Now that leaves us with the necessity of finding a way where we can come to God and find hope instead of the horror of abandonment to judgment. And I want to just leave this with you to remind you that God has already intervened towards you.

He has brought his Son into the world. He guided him, led him to the cross of Calvary, and there the Lord Jesus stood before God and took the judgment that belongs to a fallen humanity. And there was a night when I recognized, I have sinned before God.

I deserve his judgment. But Jesus was there upon the cross for my sake, and he was wounded for my transgressions. There's a night in my experience when I welcomed the Lord Jesus, I accepted him, I received him, and my sins have been removed.

And I look forward to being finally in that holy presence of God without fear of judgment, because my Savior, who stood between me and God, will be there in the very presence of God and his work will be satisfactory to God to answer for my sin.