Sermon Tone Analysis

 Romans 2:1-5.

"The Day of Reckoning"

Safe Haven Community Church.

Sunday July 17th, 2022.

Romans 2:1-5.

Therefore, you have no excuse, O man, every one of you who judges.

For in passing judgment on another you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, practice the very same things.

2 We know that the judgment of God rightly falls on those who practice such things.

3 Do you suppose, O man-you who judge those who practice such things and yet do them yourself-that you will escape the judgment of God? 4 Or do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God's kindness is meant to lead you to repentance? 5 But because of your hard and impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when God's righteous judgment will be revealed.

(ESV)

In the classic book by Dale Carnegie, How to Win Friends and Influence People, he says that he bases his approach to people-management on the premise that others rarely admit to having done anything wrong and that it is therefore pointless to criticize them.

A favorite example from the book is a saying of Al Capone, the Chicago gangland leader who for years was the Federal Bureau of Investigation's "Public Enemy Number One." Capone was as sinister as they come, a hardened killer.

But he said of himself, "I have spent the best years of my life giving people the lighter pleasures, helping them to have a good time, and all I get is abuse, the existence of a hunted man."

Carnegie's point, is that people habitually attempt to excuse their wrong behavior.

If as hardened a man as Al Capone thought well of himself, how much more do the normal, "morally upright" people of our society think well of themselves!

This is why Romans 2 was written.

In Romans 1, Paul has shown that the human race has turned away from God in order to pursue its own way and that the horrible things we do and see about us are the result.

No one wants to admit that, however.

So, instead of acknowledging that what Paul said about the human race is true, most of us make excuses, arguing that although Paul's description may be true of other people, particularly very debased individuals, it is certainly not true of us.

"We know better than that," we say.

"And we act better, too."

In the second chapter of Romans Paul is going to (correct) us of these erroneous ideas.

(Boice, J. M. (1991-).

Romans: Justification by Faith (Vol. 1, pp. 201-202).

Baker Book House.)

No one can understand or appropriate salvation apart from recognizing that they naturally stand guilty and condemned before God, totally unable to bring themselves up to God's standard of righteousness.

In this, no person is exempt.

The outwardly moral person who is friendly and charitable but self-satisfied is, in fact, usually harder to reach with the gospel than the reprobate who has hit bottom, recognized their sin, and given up hope.

Therefore, after showing the immoral unbeliever their lostness apart from Christ, Paul now proceeds with great force and clarity to show the moralist, that trusts in their good works and not Christ for salvation, that, before God, they are equally guilty and condemned.

In doing so, in Romans 2:1-5, the Apostle Paul presents three principles by which God will judge sinful humanity on The Day of Reckoning.

He does so on the basis of: 1) Knowledge (Romans 2:1), 2) Truth (Romans 2:2-3), and 3) Guilt (Romans 2:4-5).

God will judge sinful Humanity on The Day of Reckoning on the basis of:

1) Knowledge (Romans 2:1).

Romans 2: 1.

Therefore, you have no excuse, O man, every one of you who judges.

For in passing judgment on another you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, practice the very same things.

(ESV)

Therefore refers to what Paul has just said in the last half of chapter 1, and specifically to the introductory statement: in Romans 1:18-19.

18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.

19 For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them (ESV).

Typically, people have no trouble agreeing that those who are guilty of "big sins" like murder and rape and treason deserve judgment-even death.

However, that God's wrath should fall on those guilty of such "lesser sins" as envy or arrogance does not seem quite right to most people.

(Think of) school-age children who want to justify participation in an activity of which (their parents would) not approve.

The children's most common reasoning is, "But everybody's doing it."

(That is the answer we parents used to use too-and still do.)

"Nobody's perfect!" "To err is human, to forgive is divine."

Or as the philosopher Heine said in a moment of now-famous cynicism, "God will forgive ... it is his trade."

Such thinking suggests that since we are human we are under moral obligation to sin, and that God is under moral obligation to forgive us.

Inherent in the common thinking that because everyone is doing it, it is not so bad-as long as we do not commit the "biggies" we will be okay-is the assumption that God does not mean what he says or say what he means.

This problem is twofold: first, people do not understand God's holiness, and, second, we do not understand our own sinfulness (Hughes, R. K. (1991).

Romans: righteousness from heaven (pp.

50-52).

Crossway Books.)

That is why now in Chapter 2 or Romans, the Apostle Paul begins to address the outwardly moral people, and he says, you also have no/are without excuse, every one of you who judges/passes judgment.

As becomes clear in Rom.

2:17, he was speaking primarily to Jews, who characteristically passed judgment on Gentiles, thinking them to be spiritually inferior and even beyond the interest of God's mercy and care.

But every one of you encompasses all moralists, including professing Christians, who think they are exempt from God's judgment because they have not sunk into the pagan, immoral extremes Paul has just mentioned.

The implication in the opening verse is that a Jewish auditor, heartily endorsing the verdict rendered concerning the Gentiles, fails to realize his own plight.

True judgment rests on the ability to discern the facts in a given case.

If one is able to see the sin and hopelessness of the Gentile, one should logically be able to see themselves as being in the same predicament.

(Harrison, E. F. (1976).

Romans.

In F. E. Gaebelein (Ed.),

The Expositor's Bible Commentary: Romans through Galatians (Vol.

10, p. 28).

Zondervan Publishing House.)

Paul's initial argument is simple.

To judge/pass judgement on another, he points out, you condemn yourself, because you obviously have a criterion by which to judge, meaning that you know the truth about what is right and wrong before God.

Even the unbelievers know the basic truth of God's "eternal power and divine nature" through natural revelation (1:20).

They also have a sense of right and wrong by conscience (2:15).

The Jew, however, not only had both of those means of knowing God's truth but also had the great advantage of having received His special revelation through Scripture (3:2; 9:4).

Not only that, but almost all Jews of Paul's day would have known something of Jesus Christ and of His teaching and claims even though they would not have believed He was the promised Messiah.

Such knowledge would have made them still more inexcusable, in that their greater knowledge of God's truth would have made them more accountable to it (see Heb. 10:26-29).

The moralists who condemn others' sins are filled with their own iniquities which demand judgment by the same standard.

Please turn to Matthew 7

It was not simply that those who are judgmental are wrong in assessing the moral standing of others but that they also are wrong in assessing their own moral standing.

You who judge practice the same things, Paul insists.

The self-righteous make two grave errors: they underestimate the height of God's standard of righteousness, which encompasses the inner as well as the outer life (which is the theme of the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5), and they underestimate the depth of their own sin.

It is psychologically true that people tend to criticize in others those negative traits of which they themselves are guilty.

Psychologists call this "projection."

Nothing blinds a person more than the certainty that only others are guilty of moral faults.

Luther noted that while "the unrighteous look for good in themselves and for evil in others ... the righteous try to see their own faults and overlook those of others" (Romans, 36 as cited in Mounce, R. H. (1995).

Romans (Vol.

27, p. 88).

Broadman & Holman Publishers.).

It is a universal temptation to exaggerate the faults of others while minimizing one's own.

This is the danger that Jesus warns of so clearly in Matthew 7

Matthew 7:1-12.

"Judge not, that you be not judged.

2 For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you. 3 Why do you see the speck that is in your brother's eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? 4 Or how can you say to your brother, 'Let me take the speck out of your eye,' when there is the log in your own eye? 5 You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother's eye.

6 "Do not give dogs what is holy, and do not throw your pearls before pigs, lest they trample them underfoot and turn to attack you.

7 "Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.

8 For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened.

9 Or which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? 10 Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent?

11 If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!

12 "So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets.

(ESV)

* The kind of judging both Jesus and Paul referred to was not a sane appraisal of character based on conduct but a hypocritical and self-righteous condemnation of the other person.

That is why in only a few verses down here in Matthew 7, Jesus told his followers to watch out for false prophets (v.

15), who are to be recognized by their fruit (vv.

16-20).

That would be difficult, to say the least, apart from determining which actions are moral and which are not.