Will God be Lenient?

Introduction

Paul continues his diatribe. In vs 1 he has concluded that even the religious are guilty before God. He anticipates four objections to this conclusion. The first objection is that God will be lenient with those who are good people.

We often times think it is more loving to be lenient to those who are generally good people. In fact, when a good kid gets in trouble they sometimes get angry because they feel they should get off because of all their good deeds in the past. The failure in this logic is that even if someone lets you off because of your previous record, it is an act of mercy. You don’t deserve it one way or another.

Let’s say you have lived your entire life saving and spending wisely. You have quite a nest egg set aside, but one day you see this big huge yaht. It’s more money than you have. Its more money than you can afford. You buy the boat and take it out sailing. That first month is amazing, but when it comes time to make a payment, you don’t have the money. So you dip into your savings. Eventually, you have used up all your saving and you are out of money. You can’t make your payments, so they bank comes and reposes the boat. Do you think they are going to say it OK we are going to give you the boat because you have been a faithful member of our bank for years and you made a bunch of payments. You owe a million on the yaht still but its alright?

It isn’t going to happen and it isn’t going to happen that way when it comes to entering heaven. When you stand before the judgement seat, your good deeds will not outweigh your bad deeds. They won’t even be compared because they cannot erase your bad deeds. As we saw last week, God’s judgement will be righteous judgement.

The Jew thinks that all of his good deeds should cause God to be lenient with him in the judgement; so Paul argues that that is not how it works. He proves his point by asking three questions:

Do you think?

Romans 2:3 “And thinkest thou this, O man, that judgest them which do such things, and doest the same, that thou shalt escape the judgment of God?”

When we are guilty, we often sit there and think about all the reason’s we shouldn’t be held accountable, or make excuses for our actions. This man has been caught; his own judgement of others proves he is guilty. He judges others who are guilty of lying and yet he lies. He judges others who treat people horribly, but he treats people horribly. His very own judgment shows that he knows these things are wrong and yet he does them. And so he reason’s himself out of guilty.

How many times do we try to excuse ourselves for our sin?

Other people are doing it.

How could it be wrong if it feels so right.

God hasn’t punished me so far.

No one will know.

That just a wrong interpretation of the bible.

What does he think?

This man thinks because he is good he will escape the judgment of God. God is going to be lenient and let me off the hook. This is his main problem. Jews at that time did think this way. In one of their writtings it is stated:

For even if we sin, we belong to you, because we know your power

The problem is the scriptures teach in James 2:10 “For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all.” This man is not going to escape judgement.

I think even as christians we slip into thinking this way. It’s alright if I do this one sin, God hasn’t done anything about it so far and he is going to ignore it. Paul will later deal with such thinking in Romans 6:15 “What then? shall we sin, because we are not under the law, but under grace? God forbid.” Because we are under grace should we continue in sin? No, if you yield to sin, you are sins servant and sin always brings death. Sin has consequences and God will chasten even his own because he loves them.

Why shouldn’t he think this way?

We spoke about this last Sunday when we covered the judgment of God. Why shouldn’t we expect God is going to be lenient and let us off the hook? God will not do so because his judgment is according to truth. God deals with the facts. He is not swayed by favoritism or bribes. A lifetime of good does not deter his judgment. God sees the heart. He knows what is going on inside even if you can keep up this good front before people.

Do you despise?

Romans 2:4 “Or despisest thou the riches of his goodness and forbearance and longsuffering; not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance?”

Next Paul challenges the Jew with the fact that they have ignored and rejected God working of grace in their lives to bring them to repentance. I want to spend some time here because this passage introduces a couple theological truths that we need to know.

Salvation is a work all of God. Paul will later teach that Romans 3:11 “There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God.” No one seeks after God. No one naturally wants true salvation. They may want to escape consequences like eternity in hell, but apart from God no one seeks to come to God. Paul describes God’s work of grace in the lives of these unbelieving Jews as:

goodness- God does not leave anyone without any good in their lives and to these Jews they have received a whole lot of good. God had spoken to their fathers and given them the word of God. Hebrews 1:1 “God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets,” God allowed Jesus Christ to be born a Jew. Hebrews 1:2 “Hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds;” But all of us enjoy some good in our lives and that good is a gracious blessing from God. When man rebelled against Him, He could have left us in a world that looked like most of your apocalyptic movies where every moment is a struggle to survive; but He didn’t.

forbearance- God’s forbearance means that for a time, He has chosen not to deal with your sins. He lovingly overlooks it giving you time to repent. Acts 17:30 “And the times of this ignorance God winked at; but now commandeth all men every where to repent:”

longsuffering- God has given us time to repent. God could have wiped us all out immediately, but he lovingly waits. What we see in these verses is that God is doing a work of grace in every one’s life.

No one comes to God except for a work of grace in his life. Jeremiah 31:18–19 “I have surely heard Ephraim bemoaning himself thus; Thou hast chastised me, and I was chastised, As a bullock unaccustomed to the yoke: Turn thou me, and I shall be turned; For thou art the Lord my God. Surely after that I was turned, I repented; And after that I was instructed, I smote upon my thigh: I was ashamed, yea, even confounded, Because I did bear the reproach of my youth.” God must do a work of grace to bring them to repentance. We call this God’s overcoming grace.

This work of grace that is in everyone’s life is intended to lead men to repentance. God’s goodness leads or is intended to bring men to repentance. In this context, repentance is speaking of salvation again referencing back to Romans 1:16 “For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek.” 2 Peter 3:9 “The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.” and because of that he is doing a work of grace in everyone’s life. Jesus said John 12:32 “And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me.” Some believe that God only works a work of grace in the life of the elect to bring them to salvation, but here we have a work of grace intended to bring men to salvation in the lives of the lost. Theologians have tried to explain how salvation can be all of God’s grace and yet be refused by the lost. The best model I have found to explain this is the ambulatory model of grace. Kenneth Keithley describes it thus:

Imagine waking up to find you are being transported by an ambulance to the emergency room. It is clearly evident that your condition requires serious medical help. If you do nothing, you will be delivered to the hospital. However, if for whatever reason you demand to be let out, the driver will comply. He may express regret and give warnings, but he will still let you go. You receive no credit for being taken to the hospital, but you incur the blame for refusing the services of the ambulance.

Spurgeon described it this way: Salvation is all of grace; damnation all of sin.

The third truth we see here is that some people do reject God’s work of grace. God’s grace is not irresistible. Matthew 23:37 “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!” Verse 5 begins with what word? But. In spite of this work of grace, they are not saved. Notice this work of grace is on people who will face God’s wrath in the judgment day. Romans 2:5 “But after thy hardness and impenitent heart treasurest up unto thyself wrath against the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God;”

Not only do these people think they will get off easy, they despise or look down on with contempt God’s grace in their lives. God is trying to draw them to salvation, but they have turned away.

Are you storing up?

God is trying to bring them to Him, but they are resistant to Him. Paul says that they resist because of their hard and impenitent heart. Hard hearts. When we allow our hearts to resist God over and over again our hearts become hard. We will study this more in Romans 9. But a hard heart is like a rock. If you try to pour some water on the rock, it is going to flow right off the rock and not penetrate the inside. Everything God tries to do to get their attention is rejected.

They also reject because of their impenitence. They are not sorry for their sin. They want to continue living in their sin. True biblical sorrow and grief is a grace of God that leads to repentance. 2 Corinthians 7:10 “For godly sorrow worketh repentance to salvation not to be repented of: but the sorrow of the world worketh death.” But they are not sorry. They enjoyed it.

By rejecting over and over again, they are storing up wrath. This means they are becoming more and more guilty the longer time goes on and they refuse to listen.

Imagine if you had an employee at work who was told to not eat while serving the guests. You walk in one day and there he is eating at the front counter. I don’t know about you but this grosses me out. You tell him to stop which he does momentarily. The next day you come in and see it again and go through the same process. Then another day and another. Eventually, you are going to pull the trigger and fire him. When that moment comes, he can’t argue it was just once or even twice that you had to get on to him. He has stored up write ups this whole time and he is even more guilty. It is reasonable to fire him.

A day is coming when everyone will face God’s wrath and be judged. Those who had God’s grace, they went to church all the time. People kept coming to their house to witness to them. They were part of the youth group and heard Bro. Cain. When that day comes, they will be more guilty than the person who never heard the gospel.

Scripture tells us what this Day of wrath is- Zephaniah 1:15 “That day is a day of wrath, A day of trouble and distress, A day of wasteness and desolation, A day of darkness and gloominess, A day of clouds and thick darkness,” Zephaniah 2:2–3 “Before the decree bring forth, before the day pass as the chaff, Before the fierce anger of the Lord come upon you, Before the day of the Lord’s anger come upon you. Seek ye the Lord, all ye meek of the earth, Which have wrought his judgment; Seek righteousness, seek meekness: It may be ye shall be hid in the day of the Lord’s anger.”

The day of wrath is the day of the Lord which is a term that refers to the final judgment on the earth.

Conclusion

For those who have been coming to church your whole life, maybe you think God is going to be lenient with you because of that. But if God would not be lenient with the Jews, He is not going to be lenient with you. His judgment is according to truth so don’t deceive yourself.

For the believer today, this message may not have direct practical impact on your life other than to say don’t get laid back with your sin. Take it seriously. Maybe this message was a teaching opportunity for you to think more accurately about what scripture actually says.

Finally ask yourself these three questions:

Are you deceiving yourself by thinking God will be lenient?

Are you despising the good work that God has been doing in your life?

Are you piling up more and more guilt every day?