In this episode, we delve into the depths of the Apostle Paul’s teachings in the Book of Romans. Understanding the complex dynamics between Jews and Gentiles, Bob George sheds light on the fundamental truth that God sees no distinction in His grace and love. We explore the critical misconceptions surrounding judgment, self-righteousness, and the true meaning of faith, as Jesus Himself explained through His life and messages.
Welcome to Classic Christianity Radio with Bob George. Bob’s clear, timeless teachings on the complete forgiveness and unconditional love of Jesus Christ will transform your life as you learn about God’s amazing grace. Let’s join Bob as he teaches us from God’s Word.
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Let’s all turn to the second chapter of the book of Romans. let’s go back for just a moment to review the meaning of this book of Romans, who it’s directed to, and what the Apostle Paul is trying to get across to us. We realize, as we’ve discussed in the past, that it’s sometimes difficult for us to understand the contrast between the Jew and the Gentile from God’s vantage point, because today there’s such a commingling of all people that you don’t see that delineation as strongly as you would have back in those days. In the entire land, the only one group of people that was proclaiming the one true God were the Jews. They were the ones whom God had given the law, given his ordinances, given all his rules, his regulations, and that was the only voice on the face of this earth that was proclaiming and acknowledging the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Now to the Jew prior to the coming of Christ to explain prophecy, they had not a clue that God was God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. And that’s why if you would have asked a Jew back then, who is your God, they would have answered, he is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Now when Jesus came, he explained the Godhead. And until that time, only the proclamation of the Godhead was there, but without any understanding at all. In the first chapter of Genesis, when it says the word Elohim, God, that’s a plural, that’s an I am, that’s a plural. Where in the world is there a plurality of God when the scripture so clearly declares that there’s only one God? Let us go down and confuse their language. Who in the world was the us? Let us make man in our image. Who in the world is the hour? And to the old scholars would sit there and scratch their heads and wonder what in the world are they talking about and yet with a full knowledge that this is truth. So the plurality of the Godhead was from the book of Genesis on, but not with understanding. It was only until Jesus came that the triune God was explained as God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. And that was explained first to the Jew. In opposition to the Jew was the Gentile community. And as we’ve discussed, there’s only three ways that God divides humanity, even to this day. Jew, Gentile, and ecclesia, which is called church, not meaning these buildings with stained glass in them, but people who have been born again, both out of the Jewish heritage and the Gentile heritage. The majority of you sitting in this room today are Gentiles by birth and children of God by spiritual birth. And so that’s the way God delineates humanity. Now, to the Jew in those days, the thought of these heathenistic Gentiles coming to know their God, because, you know, when you’re the one that’s been revealed, it kind of becomes yours. It’s mine, not yours. And so here is this Apostle Paul coming along, telling us that this heathenistic Gentile world is worshiping our God? No way. No way is that going to be. And so we must, when we’re studying the book of Romans, keep that in mind as to the unbelievable confusion and almost an impossibility of grabbing a hold of this truth. that God came to save both the Jew, the heathenistic Gentile, and the religious Jew. But that is what you must keep in mind if you’re going to ever understand the meaning of the book of Romans. So we learned last week what God was saying in regard to people. who did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God. And folks, basically, that was directed, this book was directed to people who are going to be reading this book, both Jew and Gentile. So looking at that, they’d say, well, that’s those Gentile people over there. that didn’t retain any knowledge of God, because as it said to them, they should have known about God. Everything that God wants us to reveal, He’s revealed, and they’re just suppressing the truth by their wickedness. And therefore, God gave them over to this depraved mind, and we learn about that is how you get depraved enough. And you will get involved in, as it talks about men lusting after other men, women lusting after other women, and getting to the ultimate of human depravity. And that is not called an alternate lifestyle. That is called depravity, and that is called sin, regardless of how you want to try to rationalize that. Now, as we were thinking about this, why the two of the Jew would say, Amen, that’s those Gentiles. So let’s pick up in chapter 2 and see what he’s going to say about the Jew. “…you therefore have no excuse, you who pass judgment on someone else.” For at whatever point you judge the other, you are condemning yourself, because you who pass judgment do the same things. So just because I’m sitting there with the law, playing religion, doesn’t mean that in my heart I’m capable of doing the same thing as those heathenistic Gentiles. Do we understand where we’re coming from? So he’s saying to us, don’t sit there in judgment like you’re holier than thou. Now, folks, this is not just applicable back then. We’ve got it going on today in abundance, don’t we? And that’s that holier-than-thou attitude that I’m so wonderful, and we’re always pointing over there, all those sinners over there. And he says, hold on a minute, take a look in your own heart. And so he’s saying, how can you pass judgment when you do the same things? Now, we know that God’s judgment against those who do such things is based on truth. In other words, I am judging those things, and it’s based on truth, not error. Folks, he’s saying to… Self-righteousness, whether you’re talking about back then the self-righteous Jew or today the self-righteous so-called Christian. He’s saying to you, what right do you have to judge when you do the same things? You point your fingers at somebody and you’re going to have three coming right back at you. We can look at what’s going on on the outside, but what is going on on the inside? Because God looks on the heart. We look on the outside. And a man can look really good on the outside, but be dirty as a pig on the inside. Do we not know that to be true? And so he is showing us these things. He’s trying to bring us to truth, because what does truth do? It sets us free. And folks, if we’ve got a brain in our head and we understand anything about truth, we’re going to know something. We are no big deals. None of us. Do we understand that? All of us have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. All of us, every single one of us, before God could never stand in our own righteousness. So he’s saying, don’t get your head all swelled up with your religious practices. I’m not impressed. Now, this is the apostle Paul showing these people. And he also makes a statement here that godly sorrow is what brings repentance. And what he’s saying here is, you people, have you forgotten about the riches of his kindness toward you? And the riches of his tolerance toward you? And the riches of his patience toward you? How patient had God been with the Jewish nation? Folks, unbelievably so to this very day. And to the very day when Jesus’ feet are going to be planted firmly, not in the United States, but in Israel. And every knee is going to bow and every tongue is going to confess that he’s Lord. Patience. And he’s saying to these people who have been the recipient of this, now judging others, have you forgotten how patient God is with you? When we judge others, we have to come back to that. How patient has God been with you? How tolerant has God been with you? Well, I didn’t deserve that. Good. If you got what you deserved, you’d go to hell. And the only reason you don’t is because of the tolerance and the kindness and the goodness and the mercy of Christ Jesus. Now, folks, that should annihilate us. Some lady asked on the radio the other night, well, how do you get humble? I felt like saying, look in the mirror. I didn’t say that, but I thought that. And God saw my heart. Folks, God’s kindness is what leads you to repentance and not His wrath. You see, folks, we reverse that. We try to put people on guilt trips. You know all you do when you try to put someone on a guilt trip, the only thing you do is turn them away? It’s only when God convinces you of your sinfulness that you’re going to repent. And you and I can’t get involved in that. It’s only when God shows you so overwhelmingly His love for you and His patience with you and kindness with you that it breaks your heart and true repentance takes place. If I put you on a guilt trip, I can get you down front to repent. You go right back and the next week you’re at it again. Why? Because that’s something a minister did or coercion did or manipulation did. But when God changes your heart, your heart’s been changed. Now to the Apostle Paul saying to the self-righteous Jew… is no different than what the Lord Jesus Christ said to the same groups of people. So turn back with me for a moment to the 23rd chapter of Matthew. 23rd chapter of Matthew, pointing totally and directly to the leadership of that day, steeped in tradition, steeped in the law, had taken what God had given them, the law, which it says was given in order to point us to Jesus and tried to use it as an instrument of righteousness, was judging everything that everyone else was doing, both Jew and Gentile, but never looking within their own hearts. That’s self-righteousness. You see, you can play self-righteousness on the outside and hope to goodness that nobody ever gets to really know you. To those people back then and to the self-righteous heart today, and you sitting in your chair right now know whether you’ve got self-righteousness or whether you don’t, whether your dependency is on him and him alone or whether you’re still trying to make yourself look good in the eyes of God and each other. Now, to those people, Jesus cleared the deck for the apostle Paul to just amplify what we just read. When you, a mere man, pass judgment on them and yet do the same thing, do you think that you’ll escape God’s judgment? Now to the Jew, to the leaders, to the self-righteous. When we hear the word Jew, don’t think of all Jewish people. You’re talking about the leadership and you’re talking about a heart of self-righteousness.
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Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples, The teacher of the law and the Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat, so you must obey them and do everything they tell you. People are still doing the same thing today. But do not do what they do, for they do not practice what they preach. They tie up heavy loads and put them on men’s shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to lift a finger to move them. Don’t offer no help, just criticize. Everything they do is done for men to see. They make their phylacteries wide and the tassels on their garments long. They love the place of honor at banquets and the most important seats in the synagogues. They love to be greeted in a marketplace and to have men call them rabbi, teacher. But you are not to be called rabbi. For you only have one master and you’re all brothers. And do not call anyone on earth father. for you have only one Father and He’s in heaven. Do we have religious organizations calling people Father? He said, in the Bible, don’t do that. You only have one. You only have one teacher, the Christ. Now, folks, you’re sitting here in this group listening to a teacher. Hopefully, that God called into that position. But as we’ve said before, Who is your ultimate teacher? The Holy Spirit of God. And unless you’re depending on the Holy Spirit of God to reveal the meaning of the Word of God, you are not going to be taught. I don’t care who’s teaching you. I can teach you what the Bible says. I can teach you what God has revealed to me what it means. But for you to know what it means, you’re going to have to take that by faith and you’re going to have to depend totally upon the Holy Spirit of God to reveal the meaning of that to you. Because eye has not seen, ear has not heard, nor mind has conceived of those things that God has prepared for those who love Him. But it must be what? Revealed by the Spirit of God. And so your dependency for understanding the meaning of the Word of God can never be on a man. It has to be on the Holy Spirit of God. So he says to them that the greatest, or you are to be called teacher, you have only one teacher, and that is the Christ. The greatest among you will be your servant. For whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted.” Folks, until you learn to serve, you’ll never learn to lead. There are many people out trying to be leaders who have never, ever, ever accepted the role of being a servant. The Lord Jesus Christ Himself As Amy was talking the other day, just kind of opened up something to me that I had not really thought through that deeply, but the fact that the Lord Jesus Christ was on this earth serving His Father. That’s what He was there for. A servant is there to do what your master tells them to do. Now, although he was God, remember, he did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but he humbled himself and became obedient. He said, I do nothing unless the Father tells me to do it. I say nothing unless the Father tells me to say it and how to say it. And incidentally, as the Father sent me, so send I you. We are not to sit around doing, wondering what Jesus would do. That’s a big movement. What would Jesus do? Well, he raised the dead. What would he do in regard to his wife? He didn’t have one. What did he do in regard to a husband? He didn’t have one. What did he do in regard to kids? He didn’t have any. So if you’re trying to emulate what did he do, you’re in a wrong realm. What Jesus did was to live in dependency upon his father and did what the father told him to do. That’s what you emulate. Not what he did, but his dependency on the Father to do what the Father told him to do. In case you haven’t noticed, he hasn’t told any of you to raise the dead recently. He told Jesus to raise the dead. He told Jesus to heal the sick. Now, if he told you that, go at it. But don’t try to emulate Jesus because that is not the Christian life, is emulating being a parrot or a monkey. It is living in dependency upon what God is telling you to do. You are spatial. You’ve got your own DNA. You’ve got your own fingerprints. You’re not a mob. You’re an individual. And God in his uniqueness living in you is saying, I’m going to tell you, fellow, what to do. Not him. I’ll tell him what to do. I’m going to tell you what to do. And you follow me. He doesn’t send everyone into the ministry. He doesn’t send everyone into this realm or that realm or this realm. It’d be boring. We’re unique. And he says, quit trying to be like a monkey following each other or like those dumb pigs and sheep that just go over the end of the cliff if the leader goes over. You’re unique. If he called you to do something, go do it. Do it with joy and vigor. He’s saying, therefore, whoever humbles himself will be humble, will be exalted. In other words, when you’re living in dependency upon Christ, you’re going to be exalted in Christ. Verse 13, woe to you teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites. You shut the kingdom of heaven in men’s faces. You yourselves do not enter, nor will you let those enter who are trying to. Woe to you teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites. You travel over the land and sea to win a single convert. And then when he becomes one of you, we make him twice as much a son of hell as you are. Now, wouldn’t this teaching be great in a positive thinking clinic? You know what this is, folks? This isn’t positive thinking. It isn’t negative thinking. It’s truth. Travel over land and sea to win a single convert and then make him into a son of hell just like ourselves. Trap him into our own trap. Woe to you blind guides. You say if anyone swears by the temple, it means nothing. But if anyone swears by the gold in the temple, he’s bound by his oath. You blind fools. Now this is Jesus talking. Sweet, loving God. Jesus. You blind fools. Which is greater, the gold or the temple that makes the gold sacred? You also say if anyone swears by the altar, it means nothing. But if anyone swears by the gift, he’s bound by the oath. You blind men. Which is greater, the gift or the altar that makes the gift sacred? Therefore, he who swears by the altar swears by it and by everything on it. And he who swears by the temple swears by it and by the one who dwells in it. And he who swears by heaven swears by God’s throne and by the one who sits in it. Folks, the harshest words that Jesus ever spoke was to the self-righteous. Do we understand that? To the woman caught in adultery, neither do I condemn you. Get up and sin no more. To the self-righteous, you’re a bunch of whitewashed sepulchers. You see, folks, we’ve learned to tolerate legalism. We support it. We build huge buildings to it. And we glorify men who teach it. But not Paul. And not Jesus. He said, you’re the most damaging people on the face of the earth. And he treated them accordingly. The only harsh words that you ever heard come out of the mouth of Jesus was to the self-righteous hypocrite. And so he says, woe to you, the fourth woe. Verse 23, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites. You give a tenth of your spices, mint, dill, and cumin, but you’ve neglected the more important matters of the law, justice, mercy, and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter without neglecting the former. You blind guides, you strain out a gnat, but you swallow a camel. This is harsh stuff, isn’t it, folks? He’s saying to them, oh, yeah, you tithe your stuff, your food stuff. When it comes down to your mom and dad needing something, you won’t give them any. I’m going to give all your money over here. See somebody in need, forget them. I’m on my way to the church to tithe. Now, because Jesus had not ushered in the new covenant yet, whereby the law had not been canceled yet because it hadn’t been totally fulfilled yet, He was able to say, yeah, because we are under the old covenant, you should have tithed, you should have fulfilled. That’s an obligation of the law, but not at the neglect of helping those in need. Now, you’ll have people who will still want to teach that tithing because Jesus said that. Well, you talk about straining that than that. Woe to you teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites. You clean out the outside of the cup and the dish, but inside there are full of greed and self-indulgence. Blind Pharisee. First clean the inside of the cup and dish and then the outside will also be clean. How many of us have invested our money in the outside instead of the inside? How many of us are more interested in what we look like than what we are? How many of us would rather take our time, treasure, and talent and invest it in things instead of the eternal things that are going to enable people to spend eternity with jesus instead of eternity away from him to set our priorities in life that there’s not one thing any more important that you and i can do than letting people know about the relationship that they can have with jesus that’s an eternal thing folks everything else is temporary you can get the best education in the world temporary make all the money in the world temporary have the biggest house in the world temporary But the house you’re going to live in eternally is eternal. And if we have love, then our priorities in life should be, number one, first of all, to give of ourselves to God, and second, to see that this message goes out to a lost and hurting world. Everything else should be secondary to that. Clean up the inside and then the outside will also be clean. The sixth woe, verse 27. Woe to you teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites. You’re like whitewashed tombs. You look beautiful on the outside, but on the inside you’re full of dead men’s bones and everything unclean. In the same way on the outside you appear to people as righteous, but on the inside you’re full of hypocrisy and wickedness. Real complimentary stuff. Number seven, woe to you teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites. You build tombs for the prophets and decorate the graves of the righteous. And you say, if we had lived in the days of our forefathers, we would not have taken a part with them in the shedding of blood of the prophets. Talking to the very people that are going to shed his blood. So you testify against yourselves that you are the descendants of those who murdered the prophets. Fill up then the measure of the sin of your forefathers. You snakes, you brood of vipers. How will you escape being condemned to hell? Therefore I’m sending you prophets and wise men and teachers. Some of them you will kill and crucify. Others you will flog in the synagogues and pursue from town to town. And so upon you will come all the righteous blood that has been shed on the earth from the blood of the righteous, able to the blood of Zechariah the son of Bechara, whom you murdered between the temple and the altar. I tell you the truth, all of this will come upon this generation. Jerusalem, O Jerusalem. You who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I’ve longed to gather your children together as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing. Look, your house is left to you desolate, for I tell you, you will not see me again until you say, Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. You see, in the midst of the unbelievable chastisement of Jesus, is this unbelievable tenderness underneath the skin showing why I’m saying what I’m saying. Oh, Jerusalem, Jerusalem. I would have liked to have gathered you like chicks under their wings, but you weren’t willing. So you’ve got this two-fold thing of the Lord. You’ve got him telling truth, and truth hurts. But then he’s explaining, my heart aches for you. you heard somewhat the same thing did we not for the apostle paul said i would give up my own salvation for my own people of israel if they would just listen and folks this is not exclusive just to israel it’s exclusive to every hard heart that’s on the face of the earth that rejects the truth of christ people know themselves that they’re empty inside they know that they know they’ve never found what they’ve been looking for they know that they’re not complete And the offer of Christ is made to them over and over again. The hardness of people’s heart is still in existence today, causing their resistance to the offer of love from the Lord Jesus Christ.
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Until next time, walk in faith, be good to one another, and praise the Lord. Amen.
