Condemnation Because of Hypocrisy
Romans 17:24 · Hal Molloy · Jan 29, 2006
Romans (2005-07), No. 17
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/48262342394815

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

Open your Bibles please to Romans chapter 2. In the book of Romans so far we're in Romans chapter 2 and we're going to be looking at verse 17 through 24 this morning. But just in terms of the background, we saw that in Romans chapter 1 starting at verse 18 through the entire chapter, God is is presenting to man the fact that man is immoral. So in those verses, he's talking about the person who's immoral. And as a result of his immorality, there's condemnation. Let me rephrase that. Or let me ask this question. Is man's condemnation a result of what he does?

As we saw in Romans chapter 1 that when they knew God they glorified Him not as God and became vain and emptied their imagination and worshiped four-footed beasts and they went in to sin and all those sins were listed in Romans chapter 1 Was it because of his immorality that God condemns him?

And then when we get to chapter 2, in the first 16 verses, we saw here is another man who's a moral man, who says, I don't do any of those kinds of things. And he looks down on those who are committing all of those sins that are listed in chapter 1. But we found that the moral man is also condemned. Why would he be condemned if he's moral and he's not committing all of these sins that those in chapter 1 were? committing. So the immoral man, in chapter 1, committing all of these sins, the result is condemnation. The condemnation is a result of his immorality. It's a trick question. Think about it. Why is man condemned? For unbelief. Is it for what he does? What he thinks? It's for unbelief. The fact that he hasn't put his trust and faith in the person and the work of the Lord Jesus Christ.

So we have to keep that in mind as we go through Romans chapter 1, 2, and 3 here, where it talks about the first the immoral man and then the moral man in chapter 2 down through verse 16. And now we're going to come to the religious man, the guy who says, I'm a Christian. Or in this case, these are very religious Jews. And we're going to find that, boy, they have a heritage which is incredible. But they're condemned also. Why are they condemned? Unbelief? Okay, just to remember that, it's unbelief. Okay, Romans... Or self-reliance, okay.

So, starting at verse 17 in chapter 2, But if you are a Jew, and you rest in the law, and make your boast of God, and know his will, and approve the things that are more excellent, being instructed out of the law." Just for the heck of it, let's go back and let's just count, if you will, some of the advantages that the Jew had. However, when we're looking at verse 17 through 24, or at least down through 20, these Jews were boasting in what they had. Let's look at what they had.

So in verse 17, they're called a Jew, they rest in the law, they have the law, and they make their boast of God, three, that's three, they know his will, four, and they approve the things that are more excellent, being instructed out of the law, five, they're confident that they're a guide to the blind, six, a light of them who are in darkness, seven, an instructor of the foolish, eight, a teacher of babes, nine, and they have the form of knowledge and of the truth in the law, ten. There's ten things that are listed there.

Then in verse 21, It says, Thou therefore who teaches another, don't you teach yourself? You that preaches of man should not steal. Do you steal? And the way the wording is here, it's in the affirmative, that you are stealing. You're teaching another not to steal, but you are stealing. And in verse 22, You that say a man should not commit adultery, do you commit adultery?

They were committing adultery. You who are idols or commit sacrilege, do you do that? Yeah, they were doing that. make your boast of the law, through the law you dishonor God. And they were dishonoring God. And then verse 24, for the name of God is blaspheme among the Gentiles through you as it is written.

Okay, so last week we covered this in a summary form. And we were just looking at all of these 10 items that we just counted here that I'm just flashing up on the screen. And then we saw that this was their profession. This is what they were professing. And they were proud to be a Jew. And just like somebody might be proud to be a Baptist, or a Methodist, or a Presbyterian, or a Catholic, or this, or that. And there's that pride that goes with being called something, whether it be an Episcopalian, or Baptist, or whatever. And then, so this is what they were professing.

But however, Paul gets right to the heart. He says, but this is your walk. And your walk is you're stealing, you're committing adultery, you're robbing temples, and you're dishonoring God. And the result of all that is the name of God is being blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you.

So what I want to do this morning is to take a look at some of these. We won't go through all of them, but let's take a look at some of them. The first one is you're called a Jew. Now, here's the question. I don't want to give you the answer. I don't want you to look at your paper. Why? Why? Due to I've already given the answer, but my question is, why would a Jew be proud of being called or surnamed a Jew? You know, there was a lot of pride that they had in being a Jew.

And as you saw, the first answer is that a Jew is God's chosen people. God chose the Jew. He chose Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and the 12 tribes. And he made promises to the Jew. And a Jew considered himself above other people. And other people in a Jew's frame of reference were common. They were just common people. But the Jew was elevated. Elevated, he thought, in the sight of God.

And so you have even the Apostle Peter. And you remember he's in Joppa. And he's at the tanner's house, and he's just about to have lunch. And he's a little tired, so he takes a little snooze. And he has this dream, and this sheet comes down from heaven with these unclean animals on the sheet. And the Lord says, Peter, take, eat. And what does Peter say?

Yeah, not me, Lord. I mean, I'll never eat anything unclean. These are unclean animals. No way. She comes down again. Peter, take, eat. Not me. Three times. It always takes three times for somebody to get the message. And what does God say after that?

He says, whatever I declare clean, don't you declare unclean. and at the same time all this is happening there are two representatives of a centurion which were coming down from Caesarea and the Lord and this Roman soldier revered the Lord in his whole house and the Spirit of God came to this Roman centurion and said there's a guy named Peter in Joppa Tanner's house, Yugo Ashram.

So no sooner does Peter get through with his dream is there is a knock on the door. And here are these Gentiles, and telling Peter that the Lord instructed them for Peter to come up to Caesarea. And Peter has a question about doing that, especially entering into a Gentile's house. And Peter says, when he gets up there, you know, it's not right that we Jews enter into a Gentile's house.

However, the Lord has spoke to me in a dream. I'm jumping into your house. And he presents the gospel to them. So the mindset of a Jew was that everybody else was common. But did God love the Gentiles as much as he loved the Jews? Was the Jews who happened to be a chosen people chosen for one of God's purposes? And so God gave the Jews the promises in the law.

Look over at Romans chapter 9. Just look over there and Somebody want to read verses 3 and 4? Somebody volunteer? Okay. For I could wish that myself were a curse from Christ for my brethren and my kinship according to the flesh who are Israelites to whom pertaineth the adoption and the glory and the covenants and the giving of the law and the service of God and the promises. If you want to see the heart of Paul, and in the heart of the Lord Jesus Christ through the Apostle Paul in verse 3 when he says if it would be possible that I could be accursed from Christ and my brethren the Jew take my place and his brethren are defined in verse 4 who are Israelites and look and look what it says and whom pertains the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law, and the service of God, and the promises.

Was the Jew blessed? He sure was. And God blessed the Jew. So what happened here? I mean, as we go through Romans chapter 2, Here's the Jew that has all this, and the point is this, that the Jew's confidence was in all of his heritage, in all that God has given him, and not in the one who gave him his heritage. Not in the God who gave him his heritage. So his confidence was in the wrong place. His confidence is in what he had, and not in the one who had given it to him. Not in the Lord who had given it to him. So, can you think of an example, say, in Christianity, where there might be an illustration of that in Christianity, where we put our confidence in our in our heritage and not in the person.

I'm going to look to you for applications today. Okay, we're going to press on. And the next statement it says, and rest upon law. Now there's no definite article there, and so when there's no definite article, I tend to translate it, and unless the context tells you otherwise, translate it without the definite article.

So when it talks about law, just the principle of law or a law system. And so the question is, what expectation did the Jew have by keeping the tenets of a law system? The Jew had an expectation that here he was given the law and And there was an expectation that if he kept the law. And what did he have in terms of law or principles that he was living by? Well, two things. It was the Mosaic law. And it was the traditions of men.

And that the Jewish leaders took the law, amplified it. Here's the law, this thick, they amplified it with a book this thick, called the Talmud. And it interpreted the law so that if it says, thou shalt keep the Sabbath day holy. So here are all these Jews, the Jewish Pharisees and Scribes and religious leaders sitting down and saying, what does it mean to keep the Sabbath day holy?

Well, number one, we shouldn't work on the Sabbath day. And now we have to define work. What's work? Is work leaving your property on the Sabbath day? Yep, that's work. Is work, if you need water, is it work in terms of taking a bucket and drawing water out of the well to get water? That's work. You can't do that. Work is also pushing the elevator button. Okay. If you're in Israel in a hotel on the Sabbath, the elevators automatically are programmed to stop on every floor so that no one has to push the button because that's considered work.

Boy, did I make money in New York City with Because as Margaret is illustrating, everything's work. So when people had to eat, Jewish people had to eat, we had gas stoves. And just to say we didn't have wood stoves, I'm not that old, but they had gas stoves and you had to light the gas stove with a match. And so I used to go around to all these apartments, these Jewish people, lighting the gas stoves. So there was lots of ways to make money as a result of this.

Now, you know, we sit and laugh at it, but boy, they were serious. And the thing is this, they thought that by keeping the law and keeping the traditions of men, I didn't finish my story about drawing water out of the well. So you needed water. So taking water out of the well with a rope was work. But a woman putting on a girdle on the Sabbath day was not work.

So if they took girdle straps and put them on the rope, that wasn't work. and I mean it got so ridiculous and leaving your property was work but if you took post from your property and you went down the road and you put every so often you put down a stake from your property down the road that wasn't work so how insidious I mean that you know the the sin nature wants to get around all of the legal aspects, and the Sinitra will find a way to do that, no matter what the tenets are in the law system.

So the point is this. A Jew thought that he would be blessed by God, acceptable to God, if he carried out all the tenets of a law system. And he thought that's the way he would be blessed and acceptable to God. And that's the way he would obtain righteousness from God. Now, you may think that we wouldn't ever think about that today. Let me tell you something, at 30 years old, we went to a church, it's a high Episcopal church, and it's very much like a Catholic church, and my frame of reference was that you had to do everything perfectly so that when you walk down the aisle and you had to go into the pew you had to genuflect and I can remember saying well God that was a good one I should be acceptable to you I thought I would be accepted by doing all of the ritualistic things and so don't discount this and people that you know, people that you know who are unbelievers, think this way. So, okay, you're called a Jew, and your boast is in God. And the point was this, that a Jew was honoring God with his lips, but his heart was far, far from it. So I want to take a look.

Not Matthew seven. But how about Matthew 15. Do you have Matthew 15 or seven on your handouts? Fifteen. Okay. You figure it out. How come I have Matthew seven up there? Okay. I got smarter between the two weeks. No. Okay, Matthew 15. Would somebody read verses 1 through 3? I'll call on somebody. Okay, Bill.

Then came to Jesus scribes and Pharisees which were of Jerusalem, saying, Why do thy principles transgress the traditions of the elders? For they wash not their hands when they eat bread. But he answered and said unto them, Why do you also transgress the commandment of God by your tradition?

Okay. Notice what it says there. The tradition of men. Well, first of all, the tradition of the elders. So, here are the disciples. They didn't wash their hands before they ate. And you teach every one of your kids, right, to wash your hands before they eat. They don't have to, right?

No. But, and the Lord says, you know, His response is interesting. Look, somebody read verse 7 through 9. You hypocrites rightly did Isaiah prophesy to you, saying, This people honors me. with their lips, but their heart is far away from me. But in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the precepts of men." Okay, so they're teaching commandments of men.

So these Jews that we're talking about here had Well, well, we're having computer problems today or operator problems, probably operator problems here. Huh. For whatever reason, it doesn't look like I got my lesson on to the. Yeah, no, it's essentially right. So. What I want to do here. OK. For whatever reason. And I thought I checked out last night that I transferred my files to buy. little memory stick, but obviously it didn't.

So, we'll press on. And we're going to forget about this. The washing your hands before you eat, was that a tradition or is that a law? a tradition. It was one of the taking the Mosaic Law and saying, OK, we're going to interpret, and this is what the Mosaic Law means, and putting together this whole Talmud, the traditions of man. OK. We're on I think we're on page four of our handout, so we'll be following our handout.

And so as indicated on the handout, all of the worship and the reverence that they had, and all of this boasting and being prideful, was in vain. It was empty worship. There was no purpose. There was no honoring and glorifying God in what they were doing.

And what they were doing is trying to show themselves before men that they were, if you will, religious. And they thinking that they were right before God. of and acceptable to God because they were doing all of the, trying to keep all of the law and trying to keep all of these traditions of men that were laid down.

And the thing is, think about this, does God know the heart? And he knows the heart and Paul comes right to the issue, right to the issue in terms of these religious leaders. Let me ask you a question. Did Paul understand this, he personally? Was he that kind of a Jew? Turn to Philippians, just quickly, Philippians chapter 3.

Look at verse 3, and Paul says this, for we are the circumcision who worship God in in the Spirit and rejoice in Christ Jesus." Now he's talking as a believer and having no confidence in the flesh. So this is Paul as a believer having no confidence in the flesh. Now he goes and says, let's talk about confidence in the flesh to those who are unbelievers. So in verse 4 he says, though I might have Though I might also have confidence in the flesh, if any other man thinks that he has reasons for which he might trust in the flesh, I more."

So Paul is saying to the Jew, if your confidence is in the flesh, if your confidence is in the law, if your confidence is in the traditions of man, or if your confidence is in who you are, the fact that you're a Jew, he says, you tell me what your confidence is and I can top anything you tell me. I can top it. So he goes on into verse five, Rachel and Jacob, and he was one of Jacob's favorite sons alongside of Joseph. And the first king, King Saul, came out from Benjamin. So you could say, man, I'm the tribe of Benjamin. A Hebrew of the Hebrews is touching the law of Pharisee. You couldn't get any higher in the echelon of religiosity than being a Pharisee. Was Paul a good Pharisee? What did he do as a Pharisee? I mean, what was some of his accomplishments as a Pharisee? Persecuting the church.

I mean, that's the ultimate. So, he goes on to say, in Philippians chapter 3, he says, if you're, anybody here an accountant? that you have gains and losses. So in terms of if you want to put confidence in the flesh, here's all the gains that he just listed. You know, tribe of Benjamin, Hebrew of the Hebrews, touching the law blameless, means that he kept the law and he did all of the prescribed things in the law in terms of sacrifices and everything else. He says, and he goes on to say, but you know, What was gained to me, I count as loss.

What was lost to me, in the lost column, was Jesus Christ. That was loss. I counted Jesus Christ as loss. I persecuted the church. He wasn't a winner, that was loss. And he goes on to say, however, what was lost to me, that is the Lord Jesus Christ, is now gain. what was gained to me in terms of all of the heritage I had is now lost. And so the Jews who he is speaking to here in chapter 2 are those Jews who are counting gain all of their heritage as a Jew. And they count Christ as loss. He's a loser.

In the flight that Margaret and I were on from Los Angeles to Sydney this summer, that's a long flight by the way. It's an interesting company on both sides. I'm not describing what was on Margaret's right side, but on my left. was a rabbinical student from Yeshiva University. He spent a year in New York. Lives in Sydney.

This guy, I mean, first of all, Israel has all kind of different citizens. I mean, most Jews take the holidays. That's about as far as it goes, right? I think what Hal's talking about is the Orthodox Jew, who still believes in the law, written or unwritten. This guy, with a tremendous amount of arrogance, felt that he was abusing all of the 623 laws in the town. Every one.

You know, the fun thing about that was, you know, we were on such a long flight, we had plenty to converse about, and I think that I learned something about where he was coming from. I think he heard something about Christianity he'd never seen before, too. So it was a spirit-led conversation. I'm not sure whose life was changed because of it, if anyone's.

But nevertheless, this guy lived this out to the teeth, about every loss being kept to its completion. So those were the gains, all 620. No losses. Well, one loss. Jesus Christ, yeah. But from his perspective. It still exists. As we experienced in Israel over there, this group of people is a large contingency in Jerusalem anyway. The state really benefits tremendously because these people pay no taxes. Their entire life is supported by taxation of working people because these are the spiritual and they're honored by the society. By the way, there's quite a bit of strife in relationship to their tax dollars going to support a bunch of people I think we have a similar situation today and I won't get into it in In churches, the same thing happens. In Romans chapter 2, it says that they had confidence in being a guide of the blind and a light of one in darkness.

Let's look at the Lord Jesus Christ's comment to that. You were in Matthew 15, turn back to Matthew 10. Wow, how did I do this? On your notes, on page... This is like a lost weekend for me here. On page 4, I've got Matthew 10, 15 to 14. How's that? We're going to read it backwards. So I think it's Matthew 15. 10 to 14. We'll try that. Matthew 15, 10 to 14. And here's the Lord Jesus Christ speaking. And he called the multitude and said unto them, Hear and understand.

Not that which goes into the mouth defiles a man. This is in response to them not washing their hands before eating the disciples. They were criticizing the disciples. But that which comes out of the mouth that defiles a man. Then came his disciples and said unto him, You know, Lord, the Pharisees were offended after they heard this saying. He was just tearing down their whole structure, their whole system that they were resting on. And in verse 13, he says, But he answered and said, Every plant which my heavenly Father has not planted shall be rooted up.

Let them, just leave them alone. They are blind leaders of the blind. Isn't that interesting? They're blind leaders of the blind. And if the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch. The Lord has a wonderful sense of humor. Then answered Peter and said unto him, explain this to us, this parable, etc. So here were these, if you will, blind leaders. Now I want you to turn over to Isaiah 42. because God gave the Jews a commission and this is their commission Isaiah 42 verses 6 and 7 says this in verse 6 I the Lord have called thee in righteousness and will hold thy hand and will keep thee and give thee for covenant of people for a light of the nations, or the Gentiles, to open blind eyes to bring out the prisoners from the prison and those who sit in darkness out of the prison house. Look at the commission and look at the purpose that God had for Israel, that they were to be a light, a guide to the blind and a light to all of those in darkness. And the problem was that they did not fulfill this wonderful commission that the Lord had given them because they got all wrapped up in the letter of the law and they didn't understand the spirit of the law.

Turn over to John chapter 1. and take a look in terms of those in darkness. John chapter 1 and look at verse 4. In verse talking about the Lord Jesus Christ, you go back to verse one, in the beginning was the Word, the Word was with God, the Word was God, etc. And in verse four, talking about the Lord Jesus Christ, in Him was life. And the life was the light of men. And the light shines in darkness, and the darkness overcame it not.

You see who the Lord Jesus Christ was? He was the light. And here were these Jews, and he's talking to each individual Jew. He says, you have pride, and you think that you can teach others, and that you're a light unto those who are in darkness. But you yourself are in darkness because you don't have the light. And the light is what? Is who? Say it out loud. The Lord Jesus Christ. He's the light.

So they list the boat. The gain-loss column. So they never considered the Lord Jesus Christ, that He's the light. And then in 3.19 it goes on to say that this is a condemnation. So the condemnation is this. That men loved what? Darkness. And darkness is where there is no light. There's no light because there's not Jesus Christ in their life. Men love darkness rather than life.

Okay. Pressing on. And then we're going to skip down to on page 5 where it talks about their walk and Paul is telling them You're the ones that are teaching that no one should steal, but you are the ones that are stealing, or you are the one that's stealing, because it's singular. And not everyone was stealing. So he's addressing it singularly. You're committing adultery. You're the one that's teaching not to commit adultery, but you yourself are committing adultery. You religious leaders are committing adultery. Were they committing adultery?

If you're in John, just flip over to chapter 8. I love this story. In John chapter 8, Jesus went unto the Mount of Olives, and this is verse 1, and early in the morning he came into the temple, and all the people came unto him, and he sat down, and he taught them.

And the scribes and Pharisees brought unto him a woman, taken in adultery. And when they had set her in the midst, They said unto him, Master, this woman was taken in adultery. In the very act, we caught this woman in the very act of adultery. And what was the penalty if somebody was caught in adultery?

Well, let's go on. In verse 5, Now Moses, in the law, commanded us that such should be stoned. But what do you say? You see how subtle these guys are? They're testing him. Okay, we caught her in the very act of adultery. Here she is. And what does the law say? They're testing him. The law says that she should be stoned. And in their mind, they're saying, do you want us to go out and get the stones for you? And here's his response. This they said, testing him, that they might have to accuse him.

But Jesus stooped down and with his fingers wrote in the ground as though he didn't hear them. So the Lord then goes down and he stoops down to the ground and he's writing something in the ground. And so then it goes on in verse 7. So when they had continued asking him, he lifted himself up and said unto them, He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her. And again he stooped down and wrote some more on the ground. So he went down again And he wrote down something else on the ground. Now what in the world was he writing?

Look at the result. Look at what happens in verse 9. And they who heard it being convicted, so whatever they saw, they were convicted by their conscience, went out one by one, begging at the eldest, even unto the last. And Jesus was left alone, and the woman standing in her midst."

Now, think about this. What could he have written down? He wrote down twice, something. And the issue is adultery. And the issue is, let's stone her. And he writes something down, and they walk out. No more challenge. Do you think that possibly he was writing down some names of women? Maybe in another town, maybe some harlots that these very men frequented We don't know the answer, but isn't it interesting? But did he know their heart? Did he know everything about them? Did he know? If that was true, they were... Yeah?

It seems to be saying that the reason that they walked away was because of what he said. Because it says when they heard these things, or when they heard it, they started walking away one by one. So it sounds like they're responding to what he said, and not necessarily what he's drawing. Yeah, and so the question is, what did he say? That there's sin among you. Right. And so that's what he said.

If there's no sin among you, you cast the first stone, right? But then he wrote something down, and so the words that they heard, he who is without sin, you cast the first stone. And so they look down and remember the words that he said, and they say, you know, I don't want to pick a woman's name.

And they remember the words, and they were convicted. So they were convicted by what they heard. But two things. First, they saw something, but they heard the word. If you're not guilty of this, you cast the first stone. Does that make sense? The second novel is Roman. Oh, my goodness. OK, you're in the reading of the second chapter of Romans. Thank you. OK, next week we're going to continue on the same subject in terms of these religious Jews. And Bob will be addressing the question, what is a Jew? What is a real Jew? Let's close.

Father, again, we are just so thankful for your word. We thank you, Father, that you know the hearts of men. You know our hearts. And we don't even know our own hearts. But we thank you, Father, that we have the Spirit of God in us to reveal our very hearts. And Lord, without knowing the Lord Jesus Christ and knowing who He is, it is difficult for us really to know what's in our hearts because the sin nature is so subtle. And knowing, Father, that the more we come to know Christ, the more we come to know about our old man.

And we just thank you for your revelation. and that your wonderful purpose for us to walk in the Spirit, that we might not fulfill the lust of the flesh, and that we might behold Him and grow in the grace and the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. And we thank you for that in Christ's name. Amen.