in this episode of real Christianity I continue teaching through Romans Chapter 2 and confront legalism and the purpose of the law in short we're going to see that religion will send you to hell all that more coming up right now
 welcome to real Christianity my name is Dale Partridge today's episode is titled of Romans 2:17 through 23 how religion will send you to hell now as you know the show is an audio and video ministry of realtor.org if you're watching the video recording of this episode please be sure to subscribe or follow along for more physical content if you're listening from Apple podcast Google play or Spotify thank you for your faithful listenership are you can also follow our ministry on just about every social media platform and we'd love to have you on the journey you might not know this but realtor.org is funded by faithful listeners just like you Godly men and women who support our work at 10 bucks twenty bucks $50 per month these people give our ministry stability to plan to hire employees and contractors to write books build products would you guys consider setting up a subscription donation if you feel the Lord leading you you can just go to relearn. Org forward slash donate again realer. Org forward slash donate one last thing I wanted
 we just lost our bulk Mailing Service for mail the gospel. Org this means that if your church wants to mail out 500 track two different houses in your local area you can do that now we even had a couple churches already do this mail out the gospel to hundreds of houses they're surrounding their church with another gentleman that mailed the gospel to over a thousand people in his town in Canada and so this is a really great resource for you guys we can include a flyer or a bookmark that will send people back to your church this is just a great way to get the gospel out really take a position in your hometown and say Hey I want to mail the gospel to everybody in my neighborhood what we have ways to help you to get you know those fifty addresses of those hundred addresses we have ways to help you get those thousand addresses or to do it at a church level so again if you want to do that you can just reach out to support a tree learn.org again that support a trailer. Org
 and we can get you set up for mailing the gospel out in bulk through mail the gospel. Org okay guys we're going to go ahead and dive in to the introduction of this message over the past several weeks prior if you've been following Along on this room and study we've learned about the universal condemnation of the law the purpose of the law is not to deliver men but too damn them the purpose of the law was never to have people work their way to heaven it was to bring about the knowledge of sin and that is what we're learning here in Romans Chapter 2 we know that chapter 3 verses 20 sums up really this whole section from 1:18 all the way to chapter 2 all the way into 3:20 it says for by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight since through the law comes knowledge of sin
 we learned that the law of God is really the the mirror that reveals the moral tragedy of our own lives it means that we become aware of a need of a savior the reason that we teach our children The Ten Commandments is because they need to know that they can't keep them in that they need a savior we saw Paul making it very clear that both Jew and Gentile were equally inescapable of the jurisdiction of the law we we read in James 2:10 which is an important passage of scripture that says for whoever keeps the whole LA but fails in one point has become guilty of all of it we have to understand that the law in Jesus makes this clear when he comes into his ministry the law is not just things to do it actually is something that completely saturated supposed to completely saturate our hearts meaning that the law doesn't just demand
 physical obedience but actually obedience from the heart and Jesus would say things like you heard that it was said this but it actually means this at the Heart level you heard that it means this but it actually means this deeper level and so you even hear the disciples going like wow who can be saved then in the reality is Jesus's leading people to go nobody can be saved by the lot cuz it's not just what you do it's actually your thoughts your your private life your internal your thinking life you know people might say oh I've never murdered someone but you hated someone in Jesus would say that that hatred is equal to murder and so it's it's a law that permeates not just the physical but also the internal the emotional in the Heart level of the individual
 and so the law of God becomes a weight but no man can carry it becomes impossible for us to fulfill and to keep and because of our sinful nature that's given to us from Adam we are from verse inclined to break the law to hate God we have a a sin nature we're not Sinners because we sin we sin because we're Sinners out of famous r.c. Sproul quote that really talks about we send because we're born Sinners and we're born of Adam and we have this degenerate dead spirit that hates God and cannot keep the law when we understand with Biblical and Theological sobriety
 how helpless we are outside of Christ to keep the law that we begin to understand God's grace so it's essential that we have a perspective a right perspective of the law so that we can really understand what we've been saved from because the law demands Justice and wrath against our sin and when we realize that we've been saved by Christ from that rack we can appreciate our savior all the more but when we don't have an understanding of the law we really miss the beauty of Grace and so we do a lot of us we don't realize that we were like men and women walking across eggshells one crack would lead to the flames you know one stopping at the heartbeat you know one car accident and in this is how we need to have the perspective for those for the loss that we need to preach the gospel to the lost because there is a
 compelling and imploring for them to believe they don't realize how close they are to standing before God we have this perspective that it's going to be decades from now or many years before we're actually going to see death we will have this time before we die to to get right with the Lord that's what many people in the world think there's a book written by a belief Erwin Lutzer who penned a book called one minute after you die and you really shows that the process of dying and becoming your being in an eternal world out of the physical and into the Eternal happens almost instantaneously the Greek word for death is status and the the word that describes the science or the individual that's involved in studying death is a thanatologist they study the scientific elements of actually the process and the act of dying and want thanatologist
 is that the active that the separation of the soul from the body occurs in less than a second and all of us are that close to standing before God we don't realize that we are very fragile and so it's important that we compel individuals to get right with the Lord this reality of how close we are to God and how close we are to the Judgment for those that are outside of Christ haunted Charles Spurgeon he wants said if Sinners be damned at least let them leap to Hell over our dead bodies and if they perish let them perish with her arms wrapped about their knees imploring them to stay if he'll must be filled let it be filled in the teeth of our exertions and let no one go unwarned a nun prayed for it was an element that we need to be out there preaching the law of God preaching the grace of Christ in the gospel do in today's text Paul shifts
 from his Focus to demonstrate the universal judgment and condemnation of the law to really stripping the Jews of their privileged perspective they have put their Hope and Faith in La following and their ethnic Heritage rather than in the grace and person of Jesus Christ and so they had these perceived advantages over the Gentiles and Paul is now in this passage of scripture stripping out the religion in leaving them naked so that their only hope is to turn to Jesus Christ and so he wants to remove every possible lie and deception and prideful thought that moral Works have somehow reserved or secured their salvation this is something that is absolutely prevalent in the church today we believe that somehow our obedience is contributing to our righteous standing before God it is not true of the Gospel is done
 the law is due and we don't want to mix those two up together Christ is done at all you cannot add anything to the gospel is all been done for filled in Christ yes we can obey to please God yes we can obey to receive a greater reward but none of those things actually justify us before the father in regards to the law so Paul is exposing the Jews in divesting them of their pride so that he can present the only hope in Jesus Christ so we're going to read Romans 2:17 through 24 when it a little bit further so it says it but if you call yourself a Jew and rely on the law and boast in God and know his will and approve what is excellent because you are instructed from the law and if you are sure that you yourself are a guide to the blind a light to those who are in darkness and instructor of the foolish a teacher of children having in The Loft the embodiment of knowledge and truth you then who teach others
 do you not teach yourself while you preach against stealing do you steal you who saved that one must not commit adultery do you commit adultery you who abhor Idols do you rob temples you who boast in the law dishonor God by breaking the law for as it has been written the name of God is blasphemy among the Gentiles because of you so this is Paul speaking his people to the Jews as a Jew Paul knows the posture of his people he understands the culture of the Jews he knows their pride so he actually when you look at what's going on here he's actually flattering the Jews by pointing out four common characteristics of the Jews they view themselves as number one people who rely on the lot number to people who boast in God number three people who know his will and number
 or people who approve what is excellent that's basically verses 17 through 18 which we went through and they do all this because they're instructed by The Loft those are the elements that they have relied on salvation because of those things now Paul is smart he's a Smart Sharp you know incredible man of argumentation and he's complimenting this unconverted reader who is Jewish in Rome with the intention of getting them to listen to nod their head right he's he wants them to agree yeah I'm one who relies on the labo santal God and knows his will and approves what is excellent because I've been instructed by the law he wants them to say yes that's me yes that's me yes that's me and as we're going to see in a few moments here he's going to use their own words to expose the contradictions in their own life and so this is a classic
 tactic of debate to have your opponent agree to what you're saying and then point out the inconsistency between what they say and what they do ultimately this is a tactic of revealing hypocrisy and that's really what this passage is about it's Paul really pointing out the hypocrisy of the Jews so in the last episode I noted it early Christian historians recorded a common phrase among the Jews to Christians preaching the gospel they also would say I don't need your gospel because we have our law or we have our law we don't need your gospel so they were so heavily dependent upon the law of God we have to remember that the Jews really found Redemptive hope in three things as a culture number one that they were children of Abraham they were God's chosen people number to they had God's law and the rest of the world didn't
 a number three they were circumcised where they had the mark of the old Covenant so they had a lot of Redemptive hope in those things that's why you see in scripture of you don't have to be born not of not of blood in John chapter 1 verses I believe it's 10 through 12 he talks about you need to be born not of blood not of the Blood of Abraham you need to be born of the spirit of God's we here also the idea of I can raise up children Abraham from these Stones there's again this kind of onward Trend throughout the New Testament of the Jews really finding hope and who they were I as an ethnic individual country or Nation rather than finding their identity in Christ the Messiah until they rested in these external conditions but didn't understand the need for an internal change of the heart that they didn't see what the prophets in Ezekiel talk to me
 it didn't see what the prophets Isaiah and Daniel were talking about the later in this chapter of Romans 229 Paul even says but a Jew mean a true Jews one inwardly and circumcision is a matter of the Heart by the spirit not by the letter the letter of the law his Praises not from man but from God so again he's just a missing these elements of Redemptive hope that are not in Christ in silver 17 Paul begins to really attack this idea he wants to demonstrate specifically that clinging to the law without being able to fulfill the laws demanded absolutely foolish to rely on the law to boast in God to know his will and to approve what is excellent is actually not sufficient for salvation that's what Paul is getting a crossed he's saying hey great you were lying the Loft great you boast in God great you know his will great you approve what is excellent you're not saved
 Because unless you turn to Christ you cannot fulfill that Loft you are under God's Wrath for your failure to maintain Justice hour to keep that law perfectly at the physical level externally but also at the Heart level internally Romans 2:13 says Ford is not the hearers of the law who are righteous before God but the Dewar's of the law that will be justified you cannot do the law perfectly and if you're going to be justified you need to do it perfectly and that is an impossibility for anyone to keep and so this is again he's really clarified hey you want to try to keep the line got to keep perfectly but you can't Pookie perfectly therefore you need to turn to Christ who did keep it perfectly and he will impute his righteousness to you by face that's the gospel again Paul is attempting to highlight the inconsistencies between what they do
 and what they say and what the law demands of all mankind from really talking about what they do is use to who they think they are because of the law so Paul moves from action to Identity and again he's still kind of stroking their ego here cuz he's about to hold up a mirror to their face and show them their wretchedness before the lava doesn't get there quite yet two verse 19 and 20 says and if you're sure that you yourself are a guide to the Blind and light to those who are in darkness in the structure of the foolish a teacher of children having in the law of the embodiment of knowledge and truth you then who teach others do you not teach yourself and not the kind of introduction to that mirror going up before them so if a light could be a weapon Paul basically is taking this giant lightest flashlight and shine it right after week
 essentially saying you tell everyone else to follow the law can't even follow it yourself that's where he's going here Matthew 23 to through for Jesus makes a similar claim he says quote the scribes and Pharisees sit on Moses's seat so practice and observed whatever they tell you but not what they do for they preach but do not practice they tie up heavy burdens hard to bear and lay them on people's shoulders but they themselves are not willing to move them with their finger galatian 613 says for those who are circumsized do not even keep the law themselves but they desire to have you circumcise so that they may boast in your flesh it's just all throughout Galatians author of Jesus his ministry you cannot keep the law you must turn to Christ again pause aim is to highlight the inconsistencies and remove
 any false sense of comfort that the Jews might have in the relationship with the Loft and this is you to pay attention if you have any comfort in your obedience to maintain your justification this passage is speaking to you there is no obedience in your life that maintains your salvation yes obedience pleases God yes it's a fruit of the spirit those who are truly saved will obey but your obedience if your disobedient it's not going to send you to hell if you disobey and disobey and disobey and disobey it's not going to change your status as a child of God and we know that because it's not your obedience that keeps you saved but the perfect Obedience of Christ so often we forget these basic truths this week actually tweeted quote Christian your obedience pleases God but it does not make you more saved secure or loved so even today again Christian
 clean to La following for salvation it's not the gospel they think if they maintain their obedience they're going to somehow maintain their salvation it's bad thinking it's thinking that you can contribute to your Justified status and they're probably get it the same as the Jews they overestimate their good works in the underestimate the power of the law no man but Christ can keep the law your good works do not contribute to your salvation this is Paul's objective I'm going to say it over and over and over so that you guys understand this we need to basically strip out the self-confidence of our culture and don't know there's nothing good in me I buy myself without Christ is absolutely worth nothing except hell but that's why I need Christ that's why I cling to the Cross because he is the only hope that I have any closes this passage verses 20 through 24 he says While You Preach against stealing do you steal
 you who saved that one must not commit adultery do you commit adultery you who are poor Idols do you rob temples you who boast in the law dishonor God by breaking the law for as it is written the name of God has blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you so this is Paul again pulling out that mirror he's putting it in front of the juice face he's showing the ugliness of their souls their inability to keep the law of God but while Paul is speaking to the Jews he's really giving a lesson to all of us and the lesson is just because a person relies on the lot even loves the Ten Commandment boson God knows his will approve what is excellent is a guide to the blind a light to a dark World an instructor to the foolish and a teacher to children does not mean they're saved
 okay that's just religion and religion will send you to hell because if you were lying your own works you will not stand before God and please him he will absolutely pour out his wrath upon you as a sinner and so the same is true for a person who goes to church and read their Bible and leads a small group and raises their hand and worship and serves in the youth ministry if they've not been born again and the imputed righteousness of Christ has been given to them did not repented and turned away from them self and relied on Christ Alone they're going to hell that's absolutely certain what the scriptures teach none of those things will make you save and so under our outward work and identity
 we're all thieves we're all lawbreakers we're all adults yours at heart we're all Sinners and blasphemers that deserve death we need to see an accurate depiction of man so that we can look at Christ because basically we see God and his righteousness in his Holiness and then we see man who is so much lower and we cannot approach God we we are outside of God because we cannot be in God's presence because of our sin we need a savior to essentially become the bridge between us and the father and this is why Jesus said in Matthew 23:27 to 2802 you scribes and Pharisees Hypocrites for you are like whitewashed tombs which outwardly appear beautiful but within are full of dead people's bones and all uncleanness so you also outwardly appear righteous the others but within you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness so God hates the
 pride of a person that is blind to their own sin or blind to the degree of their own ugliness Charles Spurgeon once said If any man thinks ill of you do not be angry with him for you are worse than he thinks you to be with you think that you're good or someone calls you a name and tells you you're a terrible thing just go you know what to be honest I'm way worse I'm way worse than that I saw a meme on social media someone put out a thing that said someone calls you a bad name and someone's laughing to I sing hymns they call me worse things than that and the reality is true we eat we need to realize how depraved we really are self-love is blinding and we really like to think of ourselves much more highly than we are into the takeaway is that outside of repents of faith in Christ we're doomed we're just absolutely doomed our good works do not make us good moralistic religiosa
 he is empty and will lead you to Hell religious activity does not equal spiritual security that's essentially what this is teaching In this passage of scripture and so this is tragic news for the Orthodox Jew or for the the Muslim or for the nun and the priest or for the Mormon of Jehovah's Witnesses for the the preacher at Church of Christ which I believe is absolutely a legalistic movement if Paul can strip the spiritual Assurance for those on Earth who at that time appeared to be the most spiritually mature the most devout the most Divine the most religious what is this mean for any of us who think that following religion is actually going to save us it means that we're we're done we're doomed you must must turn to the righteousness of Christ and it means really the same for all of us right God to man
 perfect obedience and we can't offer that to enter his kingdom we need that perfect obedience there's no Jew or Gentile or man or woman or monk or priest who can meet the demands of the law all of us are in this desperate need for forgiveness of our sins against God and the imputed record of righteousness from Christ to us in order for that just has to be fulfilled so one thing that I want to close with as we often in the western church believe that we talked about the death of Christ Christ died for us but we failed to realize that Christ also lived for us so yes Christ died for your sins of somebody had to die for your sin and Christ died for your sins but we also need to realize that Christ lived for us he lived a perfect life completing the demand of the law so that he can impute his righteousness to you
 Christ didn't just die for you he also lived for you so hopefully that episode was helpful and edifying for you guys to understand the demands of the law where religion ends and how we must completely rely on the righteousness of Christ if you're a regular listener to this podcast thank you guys for just being faithful we love that you guys are here would you guys consider to leave a review wherever you're listening to you don't even need to write something you could just tap the Stars maybe even leave a comment below if you're watching the video we love that you guys are consistent and watching what we're doing here at real Christianity next week we're going to continue our journey through Romans thanks for listening to this episode of real Christianity my name is Dale Partridge and we'll see you next time
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