Rabbi Schneider - A License To Sin?
This is now Season 2. We're in the third episode, and we're going to pick up today in chapter 2. The grass withers and the flowers fade, but Baruch Hashem, praise the name of the Lord, the Word of God abides forever. Hear the Word of God. Paul says, "Therefore you have no excuse, every one of you passes judgment, in that which you judge another, you condemn yourself; for you who judge practice the same things".
So we're shifting gears now from where we were last week. We're shifting gears from chapter 1. And Paul is calling us now to look at ourselves. He's first of all saying to us, this is sin, we're identifying it in the world. But now he's saying if we judge other people, we become guilty ourself because in judging others, we condemn ourselves because we are doing the same thing that we judge other people for. I mean, this is something that we really need to cultivate in our heart, in our awareness, in our thought life, and in our speech. We need to be very careful about judging. Jesus said, "Judge not and ye shall not be judged".
Let me read it again. Hear the Word of God. Romans 2:1. "Therefore you have no excuse", he's speaking to everybody, "every one of you who passes judgment, for in that which you judge another, you condemn yourself; for you who judge practice the same thing". Yeshua said, "Judge not and ye shall not be judged". I don't know about you, but every single day, I have to make a decision to hold my tongue, to guard my lips. Conversation happens and you can just feel the energy of the conversation drawing you into gossip or wanting to draw you in to saying something, you know, an accusation against somebody. And you have to resist it. You have to resist being in agreement against other people. Judge not and ye shall not be judged. You need to be really careful about this.
And then Paul goes on to say this. "And we know that the judgment of God rightly falls upon those who practice such things. But do you suppose this, O man, when you pass judgment on those who practice such things and do the same yourself, that you will escape the judgment of God? Or do you think lightly of the riches of His kindness and tolerance and patience, not knowing that the kindness of God leads you to repentance"? In other words, so many people that are believers are experiencing God's love towards them and patience towards them, and they misinterpret that as a license to sin. It's like a child that doesn't get discipline, they misinterpret their parents' love for them as feeling they can do anything they want to do without consequences.
But Paul is saying, "No, the reason God is showing you love is because He's hoping that the love that He's showing you will draw you to His heart. And don't you realize that if you judge other people when God is forgiving you, it's going to bring His wrath upon you"? So listen again. "But do you suppose this, O man, when you pass judgment on those who practice such things and do the same yourself, that you will escape the judgment of God? Or do you think lightly of the riches of His kindness". In other words, it's kind of like thinking that because God hasn't judged me yet, because I've just experienced His goodness, He's never going to judge me.
Paul says, "Oh, no, He's only showing you gentleness now in hopes that His gentle touch in your life will soften your heart to Him and lead you to repentance, which in turn will cause you to guard your mouth and not judge people". So he says, "Or do you think lightly of the riches of His kindness and tolerance and patience, not knowing that the kindness of God leads you to repentance? But because of your stubbornness and unrepentant heart you're storing up wrath for yourself in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God, who will render to each person according to his deeds:"
Once again, this is the gospel. Paul is proclaiming the gospel. He began the book of Romans by saying that he had been sent as a messenger of Yeshua to proclaim the gospel and the gospel is the power of God unto salvation for everyone that believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. And how does he begin his gospel presentation? By talking about the wickedness in the earth, helping us to become aware of that so that we'll repent and change our ways. He goes on to say here that Jesus is coming back soon, in verse 6. And when He does, He will render to each person according to his deeds. We need to remember this, beloved. We need to be disciplining ourselves so that we're walking in the Spirit and denying our... not giving ourselves license to do what we want to do.
Paul earlier was saying, "You don't have license to give into your passions". Then he said, "You don't have license to give into a depraved mind". Now, he's saying, "You don't have license or freedom to practice this type of behavior because God is coming back, and He's going to render to each person according to what he's done". I want to help you understand something, beloved. This world is not your home. Our experience on earth is very temporary. This is just a testing place for us. It's just a testing place for us. If we'll practice obedience here, not that we're perfect, but we're striving to obey to be Jesus' disciples, we're going to be rewarded when He returns. Not on this earth. On this earth, we're instructed to deny ungodliness and practice the truth.
You see, the problem in the church today is we don't have an eternal mindset. We have a temporal mindset. We think everything is now. Oftentimes, all we're looking for is an experience in the here and in the now, wanting to satisfy ourselves now. But, beloved, that's not what we're called to look for in this earth. Think about the life of Jesus. Jesus walked upon the earth rejected, beaten, spit on. He said, "The foxes have holes, the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lie His head". You think about the church fathers and what they went through. On this earth we're being tested. It's a proving ground. We're storing up reward for when Jesus returns.
So Paul says here, "Jesus is coming back," in verse 6, "who will render to each person according to his deeds: to those who by perseverance and doing good seek for glory and honor and immortality, they're going to receive all the blessings of eternal life; but to those who are selfishly ambitious and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, their inheritance, at the soon return of Jesus," Paul says, "is wrath and indignation". We need to be ready to suffer a bit for Jesus in this world and stop thinking that we can satisfy ourselves or be fulfilled by the things of this world. The things of this world can never fulfill us. So we should stop trying to use this world to fulfill us and we should instead be living for Jesus. Paul says this, verse 9, "There will be tribulation and distress for every soul of man who does evil, to the Jew first and also to the Greek", again, he's speaking about the reward, "but glory and honor and peace to everyone who does good, to the Jew first and also to the Greek". When? Not right now. Not right now.
Think about the apostles. They were martyred, hung upside down, boiled in oil, beaten. I've been saying this...shipwrecked... but not right now. Now we're living for Jesus. Once again, beloved, part of the deception in the church today, and some of it comes from the New Age movement, which has seeped into the church is that Christian people or people that believe in Jesus, even if the Jesus they believe in is not the real historical Jesus, they're thinking that what they should expect is that God is going to give them everything in this world, and that will make them happy. But the Bible says in the book of 1 John, "All that's in the world, the lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh, and the boastful pride of life, it's not from the Father, but from the world".
You see, the New Age theology that's gotten into the church, please hear me now, it's made it about now. Everything's about the now. Especially the younger generation, all they're looking for, listen, is an experience in the now. They go to church and all they're looking for is an experience to feel good when the worship is going.
Frankly, sometimes I look around and I see everybody almost in a frenzy with the worship music, and I'm asking myself, "God, is this you that they're feeling or they just work themself up into an emotional state the same way they would at a rock concert"? Because true discipleship and true worship goes way beyond getting goosebumps when the worship music is playing. True worship is obedience. It's a lifestyle. It's waking up in the morning as a soldier of the cross, as a soldier of Christ, to say, "I put you before me, Lord, I'm going to follow you today, I'm going to deny myself. I'm not going to ask myself what my plans are. I'm going to ask what your plans are. I'm not going to do what. I want to ask what you want. I want to be like Jesus that said, 'Not my will but thy will be done.' Father, I want to be like Yeshua that did nothing apart from you".
You see it's a different gospel. Today people are just looking to be fulfilled in the now. But Jesus said, "everyone that wants to be my disciple must pick up his cross, deny himself, and follow me". The Gospel that Paul preached is that we deny ourselves worldly lust, we live for Jesus, we have an eternal mindset, and that our best life comes not in this world, which the Bible says we're strangers and pilgrims in, but our best life comes at Jesus' return when He rewards us for all that we've done out of our love for Him. Beloved, come on, come on with me now. Let's use common sense here. Let's reject that which is not of God and receive the solid written truth. This is the gospel. It's recorded for the saints once and for all. It doesn't matter what's acceptable to man today. It doesn't matter what's acceptable in Christian culture today.
Times are always changing. What matters is what does the Eternal Word of God say? The grass withers and the flowers fade but the Word of God abides forever. Then Paul goes on to say, continuing here in verse 11, "For there is no partiality with God". What's going to happen here is Paul's going to go on to tell us now, "You know what? You guys are all guilty. I'm telling you to do good but I'm telling you now you're going to find out that we're all guilty, and we desperately need Jesus. We need to repent and turn our lives completely over to Jesus because you're all guilty and in danger of God's wrath". And so let's see what he does here. He says, "For there is no partiality with God. For all who have sinned without the Law", this is the Gentiles, those that did not receive the Ten Commandments. During the time of Paul's writings, the Gentiles did not have the Law. "For all who have sinned without the Law, the whole Torah, will also perish without the Law, and all who have sinned under the Law will be judged by the Law".
So he's looking at the world and he's dividing the world into two classes: Jew and Gentile. Those of the Gentile world that sinned against God without the Law, and we're going to see that they sinned against God even though they didn't have the Law, because they went against their conscience. And the Holy Spirit was bearing them witness in their conscience about right and wrong, but they rejected the truth and still know what was wrong. So Gentiles are guilty for sitting against their conscience and Jews are guilty because they had the Written Torah, and they sinned against that. The whole world, Paul is about to say, is guilty. Why is he doing that as he introduces the gospel? Because he's preparing us to receive Jesus.
Here we go. "For all who have sinned without the Law will also perish without the Law, and all who have sinned under the Law will be judged by the Law; for it is not the hearers of the Law who are just before God". In other words, just because the Jewish people heard the law, that doesn't make them just. "...but the doers of the Law will be justified. For when Gentiles who do not have the Law do instinctively the things of the Law, these, not having the Law, are a law to themselves, in that they show the work of the Law written in their hearts, their conscience bearing witness and their thoughts alternatingly accusing or else defending them, on the day when, according to my gospel, God will judge the secrets of men through Christ Jesus".
Paul is going to continue on now by saying... So he's saying to the Jewish person, "Listen, don't think that you're better than the Gentile just because you've heard the Law. Just because you've heard it doesn't make you right". And by the way, there are Gentiles that have never heard the Law and yet they're doing those things that the Law has instructed and there are more righteous than you. But Paul is going to continue to tell us there's no one righteous before God, whether Jew or Gentile, no not one. So as he continues here, he is speaking and he says this. "On the day", he says, "this is all going to be revealed, when according to my gospel, God will judge the secrets of men through Christ Jesus".
I'm going to continue here next time. And Paul is going to, once again, talk to the Jew. He's going to talk to the Gentiles. He's going to continue to bring conviction of sin and then he's going to introduce the good news of Messiah Jesus. Beloved, what's the point of all this? When I first came to know the Lord back in 1978 as a Jewish person, frankly, I was raised in a conservative synagogue, and I did not have a deep revelation of sin. I just knew that I was lost when Jesus appeared to me, that I was confused, that I was desperate. And when Jesus appeared to me, I knew that God loved me, that He was alive, that Jesus was the way to Him and that Jesus was the way out of where I was living. He was out of the way out of fear, depression, and confusion. And I started devouring the Word of God.
But you know what happened? The longer I journeyed with Jesus, the more deeply I became convicted of my own sin. And now after walking with Yeshua, after walking with God since 1978, over 42 years now, 44 years now, the longer I've walked with Him the more convicted of sin I am. I mean, I've been cleansed of so many things, but I'm more convicted of sin now even though I'm much more, quote, "righteous or cleanse" than I was in 1978. But the work of the Holy Spirit convicts of sin so we can be cleansed. So I want to end today's broadcast by saying, do you understand that Jesus came to deliver you from your sin, not just to give you everything that you want from the world? That His real mission is to save His people from their sin? When He was born, the angel appeared to Mary and said, "You shall call Him Yeshua for He shall save His people from their sin".