In the sermon 'Grace, Judgment and the Law', Scott Brown discusses Romans 3:1-20, where Paul addresses three critical questions about the advantages of being a Jew, God's judgment, and the relationship between grace and the law. Brown elaborates on the importance of the oracles of God as the primary advantage the Jews had, emphasizing that their salvation is not based on lineage or outward observance but on a circumcised heart. Paul argues that God's faithfulness and righteousness are not compromised by human unbelief or sin. He refutes the notion that grace allows for licentiousness, asserting that grace is not an excuse to abandon the law but rather fulfills it. Paul combats self-righteousness by highlighting the universal unrighteousness of humanity and God's role as the ultimate judge, who judges based on His criteria, not human standards. Brown concludes by urging believers to embrace the grace of God while acknowledging their own sinfulness and the righteousness of God's judgments.

Please open your Bibles to Romans chapter 3. I'll be reading from verses 1 to 20. What advantage then has the Jew? Or what is the prophet of circumcision? Much in every way.

Chiefly because to them were committed the oracles of God. For what if some did not believe? Will their unbelief make the faithfulness of God without effect? Certainly not. Indeed, let God be true, but every man a liar, as it is written, that you may be justified in your words, and may overcome when you are judged.

But if our unrighteousness demonstrates the righteousness of God, what shall we say? Is God unjust who inflicts wrath? I speak as a man. Certainly not. For then how will God judge the world?

For if the truth of God has increased through my lie to His glory, why am I also still judged as a sinner? And why not say, Let us do evil, that good may come, as we are slanderously reported, and as some affirm that we say, Their condemnation is just? What then? Are we better than they? Not at all.

For we have previously charged both Jews and Greeks that they are all under sin. As it is written, there is none righteous, no not one. There is none who understands. There is none who seeks after God. They have all turned aside.

They have together become unprofitable. There is none who does good, no, not one. Their throat is an open tomb. With their tongues they have practiced deceit. The poison of asps is under their lips, whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness.

Their feet are swift to shed blood. Destruction and misery are in their ways, and the way of peace they have not known. There is no fear of God before their eyes. Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law that every mouth may be stopped and all the world may become guilty before God. Therefore, by the deeds of the law, no flesh will be justified in His sight, for by the law is the knowledge of sin." Let's pray.

Oh Lord God, that You would soften our hearts, that You would remove distractions, that Your Spirit would quicken our ears and open our minds to receive the Word that you have to impart to us today. Oh Father, your Word is pure, your Word is right, your Word is holy. Let it have its perfect work on us today. Speak clearly through the speaker, through Scott, that we might receive the blessing you have for us. We pray this in Jesus' name, Amen.

Well, there is a brand, there's a brand of Christianity, a powerful brand of Christianity afoot in the church today that sets the grace of God in such a position that licentiousness runs. There's a brand of Christianity at work today that concludes because God's grace is so magnificent, then we can live any way we want. And the Apostle Paul here in this chapter is touching on this very common thread that has always been in the hearts of God's people. He's touching something that was in Israel, it was in the early church, and it's in the late church, if that's what you want to call us. But here, Paul is answering three questions of, is kind of an imaginary Jewish person who's posing these questions to him.

And these questions answer many issues regarding grace, the judgment of God, and obedience to the law. And The three questions go like this. The first one is in verses one and two. What advantage does the Jew have for keeping the law? The second question is in verse three.

What about the judgment of God? And then the third question is, why not say, let us do good, do evil, that good may come, verses seven and eight. So I'd like to make three introductory comments about this passage before we dive into the text. And the first one is this. We've just come to one of the most difficult sections of the New Testament and anyone who has dealt with this passage of Scripture makes a comment about it in their writing.

Paul answers questions from an accuser and the way he poses the questions, I just find mind-wrenching. I've really had a tough time with this. So because I was flat on my back most of the week, this week, trying to recover from something I caught a while back. I did something I normally don't do. First of all, I had my daughter Claudia open up John MacArthur's commentary on this section and read it to me while I laid in bed and typed.

And the second thing I did is I listened to, I think three, I actually listened to three sermons on this passage of scripture. I don't normally do that, but one of the sermons I listened to was by John Piper. And he made a really interesting point. And he actually dedicated an entire sermon to this idea. And he's asking a question, why would Paul present such difficult arguments?

Why would he give such mind-wrenching, research- necessitating arguments in something where you have illiterate people in the room, you have all kinds of people, you have children in the room, You have three-year-olds that will not understand this complex argumentation. So Piper is asking this question, why would God ordain a word that is for every single person, from the littlest to the oldest? Why would he make it so complex? That was his question. And then he proposed some answers to that question.

And he said, first of all, that it's so that God's people would be humble, that God's people wouldn't be wise in their own eyes, that they would actually run into things that do make their minds bend around. And it's for God's people to seek. They understand that God's thoughts are far above their own. So If God were not God, he would present things that we would all understand. Because he's God, he presents things to us that are beyond our own thinking.

And then he said, secondly, they stimulate thinking beyond normal brain activity that just is geared to the obvious. And he makes you look carefully at every word, to wrassle every word to the ground, to squeeze the meaning out of it, to try to understand what the author meant. And then not just the words, but how it fits in that sentence. And there's some difficult sentences in here. And then how does it fit with the whole book of Romans, specifically?

And then how does it fit with the whole Bible? And so he said that God does this so that we wrestle, that we pursue holiness through these words. And these words, obviously, that Paul had been preaching to the Romans were misunderstood. And they were slanderously represented to be something different than they were. And so again, we come to arguments that Paul makes that were made slander of on the one hand, not understood by everybody on the other hand, but he deals with the subject here of all these difficult issues regarding the wrath of God, grace, judgment, and obedience to the law.

And he fills all this out. So the first thing I want to say before we dive into the text is this is one of the most difficult sections in the New Testament. Secondly, we need to understand the context. The context has prepared us for this very difficult section. Paul has just said that there is condemnation for the Jew and the Gentile.

What he's going to say in chapter 3, 1 through 8, the argument began by his saying that the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness and therefore there is none righteous no not one but even but even further that it's not outward righteousness that we're even talking about exclusively. We're talking about the fact that the real problem with man is his heart. He has an uncircumcised heart. He's quite willing to circumcise his body, but as far as his heart, he can maintain an outward religion, his heart being far from God, and doing all the things that are commanded in the law. That is a huge problem everywhere, in the church particularly.

So Paul is working here in a context where he's driving to a point that we'll reach later on here. And he's saying that all are unrighteous and then he comes to verse 20 where there's kind of a culmination and then a release into more of what he's trying to communicate. He says this is for the purpose that every mouth would be stopped. Every mouth. Every mouth of every person who thinks that their righteousness has anything to do with their deeds.

Stop that mouth. And he says, therefore by the deeds of the law, no flesh shall be justified in his sight. For by the law is the knowledge of sin." So that's where he's headed. And then of course, he's headed to that great statement of the grace of God that we'll get to in a couple of weeks. So see the context that this is in the midst of.

It's kind of like a parentheses. He's answering some questions. And by the way, he starts answering the question, and then he sets it aside and doesn't answer it until Romans 9. He says there are many many things we can say here and he only gives us one really by answering these three questions and then he actually finishes the argument in chapter 9. The third thing I want you to see about this passage is that this really is a transition here in Paul's argument.

This is a hinge point in Romans. One through eight is a hinge point. And Paul has established the wrath of God, and now we move away from sin toward the grace of God. We have just gone through a period of scripture that is so condemning to our hearts, the secrets of our thinking, our deeds, everything. There's none righteous.

We're not really even any better than the Gentiles in our hearts. So he's established that the most important thing for anyone to understand is their sinfulness. I can't think of anything more important for a little child or an old man to understand as sinfulness. It's for old men to turn crotchety and forget about their sinfulness. It's for young boys and girls to wrongly think that their disobedience and their dishonor has to do with something else other than just their sinfulness.

And it needs the ministry of a holy God. So there's a transition. He's been dealing with false assurances. The Jews rested on the law. They rested on their heritage.

They rested on their circumcision. They rested on all these outward things. And Paul says, no, you cannot rest one ounce of your weight on any of those false assurances. No one can escape the wrath of God. And he's saying, hey, your circumcision means nothing unless there's been a circumcision of the heart.

So there's the introduction. Now let's dive into the text. The first thing we'll go to is the first question. Remember, I said there are three questions that Paul is answering. And the first question is, what advantage is the Jew?

Or what is the prophet of circumcision? Much in every way, chiefly because to them were committed the oracles of God. So Paul, in the previous section, just said there's no difference in Jew and Gentile. And so somebody, this imaginary Jewish accuser, will say, oh, are you saying that the laws are irrelevant? Are you saying that circumcision is nothing?

Are you saying that the Jewish people are nothing? Well, now, if Paul had been meaning that, then he would have been black-streaming God. And so he says, no, no, no, no. No, there's much, there's much advantage in all of this. He says, no, Jewish Heritage is not irrelevant at all.

We know that God has favored the Jews. This is absolutely true. For the Lord has chosen Jacob for himself, Israel for his special treasure. That's what David said in Psalm 135. In Isaiah 43, 21, this people I have formed for myself.

They shall declare my praise. These are people for God's own possession. There is something very special about the Jews. So Paul is saying, this accuser is saying, Paul, do you mean that the Jews are not important? And Paul is saying, no.

I'm saying the opposite of that. He says, much in every way, chiefly because to them they were committed the oracles of God. They are a kingdom of priests. His countrymen received many blessings in chapter 9. We learned that they were adopted, they received the adoption, that They had the glory and the covenants and the giving of the law and the service of God and the promises of the fathers.

And all these things were eternally planned to be a blessing to the people of God. So he's saying, no, it's not to take away any blessing from the Jews, But to say that no, they have a tremendous advantage. And that is that they have the law of God. And he's just saying that your salvation is not dependent upon any of these things. So this accusation that Paul is wiping out the law and the covenants is a false accusation.

Paul is not wiping out the law and the covenants. Thank you. He's just saying that your circumcision is irrelevant unless it's the circumcision of the heart. That's the issue. And that's always been the issue.

That your salvation has nothing to do with your family line or your keeping of the law at all. But what's valuable are the oracles of God. That's the statement he used, the oracles of God. He used the word that we get, he used the word logos, The word became flesh. In these amazing places in scripture where the word of God is spoken of, he uses that same word.

And Paul is saying that their great advantage were the oracles of God. Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God. You know, that includes the Old Testament. When the Apostle Paul said all scripture is given by God and is inspired and is profitable for everything. He was talking about Old Testament scripture at that time.

And that's what Paul is saying. The Old Testament contained everything needed for salvation. But the traditions of the rabbis too often were upstaged the teaching of scripture. The traditions of the rabbis obliterated a memory that it was a circumcision of the heart that was necessary. And so because of this famine of the Word of God that Amos would prophesy would happen, the people were thinking about obedience without a heart that followed it.

So Paul says, how important is the law? Much in every way. To the Corinthians he said, you know, we are stewards of the oracles of God. We are here to represent the oracles of God to the church. You know, so what is, what's the advantage?

The advantage is the word of God. Here's a question you might consider. Lloyd-Jones asked this question, do the children of Christian parents have any advantage over other parents? Absolutely, Because they have the Word of God. They may not be converted when they're little babies, but they have the advantage of the guidance of the bread of life.

They have the light shown before them. And so there is great advantage. You know, I heard a quote by John Edwards the other day who was talking about the movement of the rights of the child. And his comment was, I have no right to employs my religion on my children. Well, you know what?

That is, I think, somewhat contrary to what Scripture would say. But what advantage is there of giving the Word of God to your children? Much! There's a massive advantage in it. But the Jews had gotten to a place where the heart of the commandments had been completely lost.

And, you know, the Jews had access to salvation but they didn't have a monopoly on it. And that's what Paul is saying. You Jews don't have a monopoly on salvation. Salvation is gained through the circumcision of the heart. And so, just to take a moment to say something about this.

The ordinances of God, the very words of God, planted in the home and in the heart are the chief happiness of God's people. They are blessed. If we do anything in this life, let's make sure that the oracles of God fill everything. And if we neglect this, We shall undo all. It's so critical that we do it.

Because there is great advantage, much in every way. Even in the family where all of them are not saved, much, much in every way. The oracles of God are critical. And it is a great advantage. So the point is, the advantage of the Jew was the Word of God.

And this will always be our great advantage. And when you prioritize the activities of life remember that the Word of God, the oracles of God should find themselves on the high places of your priorities. So that's the point or at least one of the points that flows from this first question. What is the advantage of the Jew? And the advantage of the Jew is found that they know the oracles of God.

These are so important. This is why we must wage war against everything that contradicts the oracles of God. If one would contradict them, we should be on it, because it is the oracles of God that are a blessing to a heart, to a home, and to a church, and to a nation. You know, in our church, we so desire the oracles of God to fill everything. We want to sing scripture like we did.

We want to pray scripture. We want to read scripture. We want to memorize scripture. We want to preach out of the text of scripture to try to take from it what is there so that God would Use it for our blessing and for what Paul says is our advantage Okay, so that's the point Question number two is found in verses three through six For what if some did not believe Will their unbelief make the faithfulness of God without effect? Now this is one of those questions you have to spend some time on.

What does he mean by this? The accusation that was coming to him that he's answering goes like this. God didn't keep his promises because all the Jews weren't saved. God said these were his chosen people, but look what happened to them. Look at the sufferings they've had all in all their history.

Look at the look at the travails and also the apostasy that was there. Are you telling me that God is faithful in these unfaithful people? So that's the argument. God issues many promises to his people, Israel, and they violate many of his promises toward them. Does that mean that God is a liar?

Does that mean that God is not faithful to keep his promise? God said he would preserve all of his people. What does that mean? What's that supposed to mean? This is really a similar question that we ask.

Why is it that there are so many people who see the glory of God declared in the heavens? They know the Word of God, but they reject God. Why is that? How can you grow up and find yourself so apostate and even when you're surrounded by the oracles of God. So you know another way we might ask this in our own in our own context is this.

Does unbelief in the church mean that God is not faithful? You know There are a lot of people around who they go into church and they find out that Joe and Susie and Susie's children are hypocrites, that they don't really fulfill the law of God, that it's not in their hearts and it's not in their actions. And they say, I'm not, what's Christianity's bogus because there are hypocrites there. Well, that's a pretty common argument. Paul is actually dealing with, I think, a subset of that argument.

Why is it that so many of God's people are so messed up? You know, that's what he's dealing with here. And he says, and he says, no, no, no, this does not, this does not mean the unfaithfulness of God. It proves his faithfulness. And he's saying that it's And he's saying that it's our unrighteousness that proves God's righteousness in the church.

And So God glorifies himself even through the unbelief of those who are among his people. That's an interesting thought, isn't it? How could God glorify himself through that? And so he's again giving an invitation to a heartfelt, genuine faith that does not exist in everyone. And so what if some do not believe?

Well, Paul wants us to realize that the promises of God, many of them were conditional. And the people of God did not fulfill the conditions of the promises. Some of the promises of God were unconditional, and some, many were conditional. And there are, and so there are many that reject the promises of God by their own actions. And that's what he's talking about.

And so he asked, for what if some did not believe? Does their unbelief make God unfaithful? And does it make God a liar? No. No, it doesn't make God a liar at all.

Well, didn't God promise that his descendants would be at the sands of the seashore? Didn't he promise that you'd be a chosen people and a holy nation? Yes, he did. But those promises were conditional upon obedience from the heart toward God. And so that's what he's arguing.

You know, many identify with the Church, but they don't really believe. And many speak about their heritage, and they've identified with the church. But they're just like the people of Israel who have not had their hearts circumcised before God. And so in Romans 8, Paul, you know, answers this in one way. He says, it is not as though the word of God has failed, for they are not all Israel who are descended from Israel.

Paul is just saying, hey, wait a minute. The promises of God didn't have to do just with genealogy. It had to do with heart. And you can descend from Israel if your heart is circumcised and have no lineage at all. And so he says, certainly not.

Let God be true and every man be a liar as it is written that You may be justified in your words and may overcome when you are judged. But our unrighteousness demonstrates God's righteousness. And that's the point he's making. And he's repeating the accusation and saying, hey, I speak as a man. This is just human thinking now.

I speak as a man, God is not condoning sin. He says certainly not. He says for if that were true, how would God judge the world? He's saying you need to know that there is a judge in heaven And God will come and judge his people regardless of their lineage, regardless of their keeping of the law outwardly, or regardless of any other outward thing. Now the idea that all are not saved is not a foreign idea, is it?

All are not saved. Can we just say that? All are not saved. Now, there are people actually even who are connected to churches and things like that that say that all are saved if they are sincere. People want a gospel where the whole world will be saved.

And Paul is talking, saying no! The gospel is not where the whole world is saved. The Jews wanted to be saved because they were Jews, because of their lineage, and because they were able to wash in a certain way and dress in a certain way. And Paul would say, no, God is a judge. And if all are saved, how will God judge the world?

Now the idea that God will judge the world is not a very popular idea, so I'd like to talk about that for a minute. But God will judge the world, and Paul is saying here, God will judge the world, But he will judge the world based on his own criteria Not your individual criteria. He does not judge the world based on our own understanding of what's judgeable and not we might say Well, I was sincere God will say but my wrath is against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of sin. Well, God will judge. So, so Paul is making the point against the popular notion that God will not judge, that God yes indeed will judge the world.

And he is saying, is God unrighteous to take vengeance? No. Is God unfair to take vengeance? No! You know, I read of something that happened recently in the White House that just reminded me of this.

Our president, George Bush, has repeated a number of times over the last few years that all religions lead to God. And he just recently said again, whether they be Muslim, Christian, or any other religion, they all pray to the same God. And the White House let out an announcement about this. And they announced that seven times they've had an iftar dinner in the White House. Iftar is the culmination of the Muslim time of Ramadan, time of fasting and sacrifice.

And each day during Ramadan you break the fast at the end of the day. At the White House for seven years they have had an iftar dinner with the president and his wife and the whole cabinet and they're breaking the Ramadan fast and so that's so they're having this this the celebration and the president says as we celebrate this special iftar we renew the ties of friendship that bind all those who trace their faith back to Abraham. We Recognize many hopeful works we have achieved together. We look forward to learning more from each other in the years ahead I'm so grateful. I wish you a blessed Ramadan and may God bless you You know, this is nothing more than synchro the kind of syncretistic thinking that was in Israel and that that that the prophets Confronted that Paul is confronting right here in this passage.

No, there is a judge. God is the judge. He will judge by His own criteria. He will judge righteously. He will not judge by your outward performance.

He will not judge by the way you dress or whether you homeschool. He will judge with righteous judgment. He will come with a winnowing in His hand with fire to come and judge the thoughts and the secrets of the heart. One of the sermons I listen to is by Ray Stedman, one of my dear favorite pastors who died a few years ago. My pastor began to give me Ray Stedman books early on in my faith.

And I just, I so love this man. He was a great expositor. But one thing he said in his sermon on this text he said he said I've always I've always thought it would be it would be interesting to post a camera at the at the at the in the church that would read everyone's minds and record it. He said, maybe we could come back Sunday night and we could see what everyone was thinking while the prayer was being prayed, while they were walking in and things like that. You know, God judges the secrets of the heart.

Wouldn't it be, It would just be incredibly embarrassing to have all of our thoughts broadcast. The secrets of our hearts on the screen with the words coming out of our heads like that. Wow! Well, maybe somebody could develop that and then things would really be bad for all of us. But we need to understand that this is the way that God sees us.

He reads the thoughts and the intentions of our hearts. He knows what we're thinking and doing. There's none righteous, no not one. I pray that God would give us a very unrighteous church in the sense that we're not have, we don't have self-righteousness, that we don't feel proud about anything except for the grace of God, that we know that we're sinners, that we're not a people who rise up and point our bony fingers at the other people out there who don't quite have it together. I just pray that God would rescue us from any form of that.

It's our natural nature. It's in the nature of every single church I've ever been in, and it's in us, it's everywhere. And it was in the early church when Paul is dealing with the Romans it was in Israel and it's the pervasive problem and Paul is answering this question and he's saying whatever that God will judge the world and don't make any misunderstandings about that. Okay, let's move to the third question. The third question is in verses 7 and 8.

For if the truth of God has increased through my lie to His glory, why am I also still judged as a sinner? And why not say, Let us do evil that good may come? I'm confident that you could spend two or three hours developing each one of these questions. So I would apologize for the thinness of our ability to deal with them. But Paul is attacking, well, Paul is being attacked for compromising the holiness of God because there are people who are hearing Paul's teaching and they were saying this, well since I have salvation by grace, since I'm released from the condemnation of the law, that means I don't have to obey any laws anymore.

I'm a law unto myself. It's my own conscience that rules the day. There are no other reference points other than what I think I should do. And I can read the Bible, but my conscience is the God of this world. That's really what he was, he was being slanderously, he was being slanderously taken to task for teaching that, that there's no such thing as the law anymore.

And so Paul's enemies were charging that salvation by grace through faith undermined the law of God and gave freedom for sin. And Paul's saying, hey, grace doesn't undermine the law. Grace is a fulfillment of the law. Grace goes to the heart of the law. It doesn't set the law aside.

It just doesn't make the law your benchmark for holiness. It's to convict you of sin. It's to help you to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord. Spurgeon said the law instead of above us was below us, that we walk on it in grace. We walk on the law, we walk by the law, we walk according to the law.

And Paul was saying, certainly not, this does not mean that we set aside the things that the law has said certainly not we're not saying let us do evil that good may come because God just forgives all of our sins God is merciful to all of our sins. Isn't that amazing? And it's only a wicked heart that would say, well, you know, because of the grace of God, I'll do whatever I want. You know, that's actually a very bad sign in someone's heart when they think that way. But it's the natural way that human beings think.

And Paul is attacking that. The truth is the Jews wanted a salvation by works. They wanted to be able to do five things, like the Muslims do, to be righteous before God. Hey, only five things. And you just have to do them anybody can do that you can make a computer do that and you know But that's what the kind of religion that you the Jews Wanted to have And that's the kind of religion all of us want deep within our hearts.

Paul was not rationalizing sin because of grace. He says, are we to continue in sin that grace abound? May it never be. He says that in chapter 5. He's going to repeat the same idea in chapter 8, and it runs through this whole letter.

Certainly not. He uses the strongest possible Greek terminology to deal with this. Certainly not. Like absolutely certainly not. With all of my heart, .com, .net, .org, whatever.

He's using an extremely harsh and specific term when he says may it never be and he's saying you know or else God would be proved a liar. No, God is true. God's word is true. The law is true. Every man is a liar.

So that's the point that he's making there. So is my response to the doctrine of justification by faith alone? Say, I'm free from the law of God. May it never be. May it never be.

You are free from the weight of the condemnation of the law in your soul because the blood of Christ has cleansed you from all unrighteousness. Yes, absolutely. But that doesn't mean that we set aside what God has already said and He's called it holy. And He would have us say, oh, I delight greatly in thy commandments on 112 or oh how I love thy laws my meditation all the day that's where we should be regarding the law not oh how I would love how how nice it is to set aside this law that God has given, so that I can pursue the grace and the conscious of my own heart. Paul is saying, nope, that's not what we're talking about here.

So freedom from the law is not freedom from obedience, but it's freedom from perfect obedience and the requirement of the law for salvation. And so Paul is saying, if anybody's claiming I'm teaching antinomianism, please tell them that's slander. I'm not an antinomian here. Okay, so we've just gone through these three questions. The first question affirms the love of God by giving his oracles.

And it gives the great advantage of the oracles of God. The second question deals with the judgment of God dealing with sin. Yes, there is judgment against all ungodliness and unrighteousness. And no, the Muslims and the Jews and the Hindus do not have the same religion. No, we don't.

There is judgment, and it's a righteous judgment. And then the third question deals with the grace of God that leads us to repentance, and then also just joyfully desiring, loving the law of God, cleaving to it, hoping with all of our hearts to get away from this brand of evangelical Christianity that sets aside all regulation before the people and so and presenting the idea that yes we must, we must obey God even though he has given us his grace. And what is our attitude toward those who might not hold the commandments of God like we will let God be the judge God is the judge not us okay let me give you three conclusions and then we can maybe fill this out and in clear form together as a church number one Paul is destroying self-righteousness in every section. I mean he is he is a hatchet man and he is hatcheting away every thought of self-righteousness. He will not let anything stand.

He will let no religion stand. He will not let no secret of any heart stand. He is chopping away at your self-righteousness and calling you a sinner, totally bankrupt, and that the wrath of God is revealed against all ungodliness and all unrighteousness. Secondly, God's punishments were to show His righteousness and His love. We should be conscious of God's judgment.

We should realize that we will all stand before the judgment seat of Christ And some of our works will be burned up. Hopefully, hopefully, not very much, but perhaps much. And the wrath of God is revealed from heaven, even toward believers who continue to walk in sin. They are saved, but much will be burned. And then of course there's the great wrath of God against sinners who refuse to repent.

And then thirdly, our unrighteousness demonstrates the righteousness of God. We are trophies of the grace of God and never have trophies of our own accomplishment. God will judge the world. He does desire our righteous people. He does desire to transform us.

But he does intend that every self-righteous mouth should be stopped before him. And they should claim the glory of God's grace, and His judgment, and the beauty of his oracles. And that's what God's people would be well to do. Even in the midst of this brand of Christianity that rejects two-thirds of the Bible for the sake of conscience, This is the wrong direction. And so God is calling us to have a right sense of ourselves and to take us to task for the real problems and to identify the wrong thinking that flow in the church and have always flowed in the church so that we would know how to present ourselves before God, holy sacrifices before Him.

Let's pray. Oh Lord, how amazing it is that you'd have grace greater than all of our sin. Your faithfulness to all generations, stopping every mouth and knowing every heart. In Jesus' name, Amen.