Zambia Hunt

Paul writes in Romans 2:1-11:

“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. We know that the judgment of God rightly falls on those who practice such things. 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? 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? 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. He will render to each one according to his deeds: to those who by patience in well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, he will give eternal life; but for those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, there will be wrath and fury. There will be tribulation and distress for every human being who does evil, the Jew first and also the Greek, but glory and honor and peace for everyone who does good, the Jew first and also the Greek. For God shows no partiality.”

Verses one through four demonstrate the central principle that the religious do not fool God.

Hard Hearts Lead to Self-Deception

Paul begins in verse one: “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.”

The first principle is clear: hard hearts lead to self-deception. Paul exposes the hypocrisy and self-deception at work among the religious elite.

Paul declares that everyone is without excuse. The Jews believed they belonged to a different category. They represent the religious, self-righteous individuals of our day who have grown up in “Christian” culture. They were saved, their parents were Christians, and they had attended church from childhood throughout their upbringing.

Paul emphasizes that everyone is without excuse, and everyone condemns themselves. Before the holy gaze of a righteous God who knows and sees everything, those who pass judgment on the Gentiles lack moral authority because they practice the very same things. In essence, they pass judgment upon themselves.

Recent months have brought numerous scandals involving pastors in Zambia who stand before congregations to declare God’s word, only to be discovered sleeping with the wives of men in their own congregations. These scandals occur regularly across our land.

Our culture seems structured so that everyone holds compromising information about others, creating an unholy tension that holds the entire system together through mutual blackmail.

This Self-Deception Is Illustrated By King David

In 2 Samuel, after David sinned with Bathsheba and covered it up, everything seemed to be going well. One day in 2 Samuel chapter 12, verse 5, Nathan the prophet came into the court of David and told him a story, asking him to make a judgment.

A rich man had received visitors. Instead of slaughtering one of his own sheep to feed his guests, he went to the poor neighbor next door who only had one little lamb. The neighbor cared for that lamb and nurtured it. He would even bring it into his house at night to keep it warm and protect it from the wolves.

When the rich man’s friend came, instead of choosing from the thousands of lambs and sheep that he had to slaughter and feed his guests, he went over to the neighbor—the disadvantaged one—and seized the only lamb that he had, slaughtered it, and fed his guests.

Here’s David’s response: “Then David’s anger was greatly kindled against the man, and he said to Nathan, ‘As the Lord lives, the man who has done this deserves to die, and he shall restore the lamb fourfold, because he did this thing and because he had no pity.’”

He had the right to make that judgment—he was the king. The judgment that David made, you can sense his righteous indignation. It’s wrong. It’s unfair what that farmer did to that poor farmer. It’s unjust. David is outraged. “He is to restore four times and then put the man to death. He deserves to die.” You’re right, David. Absolutely. No argument.

Imagine the boldness of Nathan, because this man David held the power of life and death over anyone. He was the sovereign. As soon as the words came out of David’s mouth, Nathan turns and points his finger and says, “David, you are that man! Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, ‘I anointed you king over Israel, and I delivered you out of the hand of Saul. Why have you despised the word of the Lord, to do what is evil in his sight? You have struck down Uriah the Hittite with the sword and have taken his wife to be your wife and have killed him with the sword of the Ammonites.’”

Suddenly all the pretense, all the cover-up melted, and David collapsed off the throne onto his face, seeing for the first time in months the horror of his own guilt. This is what Romans 2 is talking about.

This Self-Deception Is Illustrated By The Pharisees

Consider the Pharisees. The Gospel writer Luke records that they were lovers of money. They fixated on small details of the law but ignored the weightier matters. Matthew writes of these scribes and Pharisees that they were hypocrites: “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint and dill and cumin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness. These you ought to have done, without neglecting the others. You blind guides, straining out a gnat and swallowing a camel!”

That describes the Jews of Paul’s day, and that describes many religious people in ours.

We’ve seen that religious people don’t fool God. Their hypocrisy is exposed, but it gets worse. Not only are they without excuse, but they compound their guilt by making dangerous assumptions about God’s response to sin. Don’t be like these Jews.

The Danger of Religious Self-Deception

The most dangerous people in any society are often not the obvious criminals or the openly immoral. The most dangerous are those who have convinced themselves that their religious credentials provide them with special immunity from accountability. They judge others harshly while excusing their own behavior. They see the speck in their neighbor’s eye while ignoring the log in their own.

Religious self-deception is particularly insidious because it wraps itself in the language of righteousness. It quotes Scripture, attends services, and maintains proper appearances. But underneath the religious veneer lies the same human heart that is “deceitful above all things and desperately wicked.”

Paul’s message in Romans 2:1-4 shatters the comfortable assumption that religious people get special treatment from God. Being raised in a Christian home, knowing the Bible, attending church regularly, or even being in Christian ministry provides no automatic exemption from divine judgment.

The very act of judging others while practicing the same sins becomes self-condemnation. Every time we point the finger at someone else’s moral failure while harboring the same attitudes in our hearts, we pronounce judgment on ourselves before a God who sees everything.

In our next post, we’ll explore the dangerous assumptions that religious people make about God—assumptions that Paul will systematically demolish as he continues his devastating critique of religious presumption.

This is the second post in a 5-part series examining Romans 2:1-11. Next week: “The Dangerous Assumptions We Make About God” – discovering how religious people convince themselves they’ll escape God’s judgment.