I draw your attention this morning back to Romans 2. Romans 2, let's begin reading in verse 17, and let's read through the end of the chapter. 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, an instructor of the foolish, a teacher of children, having in the law 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 say 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 is written, the name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you. For circumcision indeed is of value if you obey the law, but if you break the law, your circumcision becomes uncircumcision. So if a man who is uncircumcised keeps the precepts of the law, will not his uncircumcision be regarded as circumcision? Then he who is physically uncircumcised but keeps the law will condemn you who have the written code and circumcision but break the law. For no one is a Jew who is merely one outwardly, nor is circumcision outward and physical. But a Jew is one inwardly and circumcision is a matter of the heart by the spirit, not by the letter. His praise is not for man, but from God. Let's go to the Lord in prayer. Gracious Lord and our heavenly Father, we come before you, Lord, this morning as we begin to look at your word and we ask that you would Enable us to concentrate, Lord, that You'd enable us to have discernment and wisdom that the Spirit would work in such a way that His power would be present among us and teaching us from Your Word, from enlightening our minds and bringing light to the Word, Lord. Lord, we pray that You would enrich us by it, that You would feed us by it, Lord, that we may humbly come before you seeking to hear from you, not from man, but from you. And Lord, that we would. Glean from what you'd have us to look at this morning. Lord, we have so much that we have in our hearts, Lord, for. for prayer and Lord also for Thanksgiving. Lord, we are. Humbly reminded that you are sovereign and that you are the ruler, you are in control of all things. From the least to the greatest. Lord, we. Would ask that you would enable us to rest in that fact. Lord, we thank you for You're working. Lord, we thank you for the work of the sun. We thank you for the work of the spirit. It's the name of our Savior, Jesus Christ, we pray. Amen. Well, have you ever known someone who has been blessed greatly with wealth or means, and these wealth or these means not achieved by their own efforts? Have you ever known anybody like that? Ever known anyone that maybe has inherited some of these things? What do we often find in these individuals that have been the recipients of these great gifts, which they have not earned or acquired by their own work? What do we often find in these? Do we not often find that they use these things and use that which they possess as a means to inflate their own sense of worth and value? their sense of superiority over others? Is it not most often the case that they look down from their lofty position and see themselves as towering over those who have not been blessed in such a way? Isn't that often the case? That which they did not earn or achieve, but instead were gifted, leads to an overinflated sense of self-worth and value. It's rare, isn't it, that we find those who have been blessed in such a way who are not that way? Also been blessed to know some of those, but they are few and far between. Let me ask you another question as we begin here this morning. We know that people often group together, group themselves together based on shared traits or shared devotions. Sometimes that may be even in a business or in work that we find this. Maybe not even sharing anything other than a workplace with others, but they group together for this work at the place that their business is or where their occupation is, where their employment is. and that work itself is their common bond or the commonality between them. And when we know or it's known that a group of individuals are together due to these things, then it's often the case also that smaller groups form from within the larger and they become somewhat representative of the larger group, even these smaller groups that form. I think back when I first started work, I started work, my very first job was in a sporting goods store. And we were all at work together, but we had our fishing department. And we were grouped around that. And then there was a clothing department and a shoe department and all these other types of departments. Let's take the business, for instance. The individuals or even the smaller groups that form within that larger organizations are representatives to those in their area of the overall organization, right? So in my analogy, coming into the fishing department, we were representatives to those who were in our area there in the fishing department of the larger organization. the store, and then even the regional and the national brand that exists within this business. Now let me ask you, I can certainly know that my family will be picturing many times in their lives where they've seen this true in my case, but let me ask you, have you ever gone into a business like that and had a very, very negative experience? Has there ever been a situation where something has occurred and you've walked out of that business and said, I will never again walk into that business. I will never do business with them. I will never give them my money. I will never deal with them again. And then when you walk out of a business like that, is that not the view that you get of the entire organization? Isn't that because they are representatives of that entire organization? And maybe more than just the organization, maybe we know who the founder or the owner of that business is. Is that not then the view that we might get of the owner of that business as well? If his employees treat me this way, if his employees have this type of business where they're lax in this certain area or they haven't done what needs to be done to successfully meet my needs as a consumer, then that reflects upon not just them, but the owner as well, right? Well, this is an imperfect example. But it points in a small way to where Paul is heading in our text this morning, where we will, Lord willing, end up in verse 24 of Romans 2. Paul begins in our text this morning in verse 17. We finished up with verse 16 last week, now we move on to verse 17. And really we're going to take this kind of as a section, verse 17 through 20, where Paul states, 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, an instructor of the foolish, a teacher of children, having in the law the embodiment of knowledge and truth, Here, Paul is directly addressing those who are Jews as if he was speaking to one Jew. As a representative, you see, of the group. We believe that he has addressed them somewhat previously, as we've looked at and we made mention of this diatribe or this argument with the man in verses two through five, or excuse me, one through five of this same chapter, but we can infer from the text that he is dealing with the Jews there, but now here he comes out and he addresses the Jew by name, by their name and by their calling. And in fact, it was a great privilege to be a Jew, as we will see here as Paul addresses this group in a series of clauses or statements regarding this group or people in verses 17 through 20. It was a great privilege to be a Jew. Paul even mentions that later on as we progress in Romans, we will see that. In verse 1 of chapter 3, he says, then what advantage has the Jew? Or what is the value of circumcision? Much in every way. And we'll get to that. Let's look at this section, though, as we move through this part of our text. But if you call yourself a Jew, these Jews, this Jew as representative of the group has been separated from others. They are the Jews. They are not the Gentiles, not the Greeks, not the nations. They are the circumcision as opposed to the uncircumcision. They're the clean versus the unclean. They are the chosen of God, not the strangers. They're separate. They're a peculiar people, you'll recall. They were a people defined by their calling and defined by their name. Now we will see as we look at each of these clauses, there are two ways to react to this. Two ways, and there are always two ways, are there not? There's always two ways. There's two paths. There's the right way, and there's the wrong way. This world has too much begun to be comfortable in a gray, in the in-betweens. There's the right, and there's the wrong. There's the righteous and holy, and there's the wicked and the evil. There's two ways. Two paths. The hard way that strips one of all sense of self-worth. And then there's the easy way that inflates the vain sense of self-worth. There's the narrow, right? And there's the wide. Always two ways. And to call yourself a Jew, and to realize what Deuteronomy tells us about being a Jew. To realize what Deuteronomy 7, 7-8 reveals to us regarding the Jew is one way. Listen to what Deuteronomy 7, 7-8 says. It was not because you were more in number than any other people that the Lord set His love on you and chose you, for you were the fewest of all the peoples, of all peoples. But it is because the Lord loves you and is keeping the oath that He swore to your fathers, that the Lord has brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh, king of Egypt. They were not chosen because of their might. They weren't chosen because of their number. They weren't chosen because of their wisdom. They weren't chosen because of their wealth. But they were chosen by the sheer sovereign grace and purpose and plan and choice of God Almighty. And why? that he might display his power, his wisdom, his blessing, not to display theirs. So then there is a wrong way to view this, is there not? If there is a right way to view it, there is a wrong way to view it, which is what became a trap to the Jew. and was most often the case with them. They were proud of the fact that they were a Jew and used it as a manner in which to elevate themselves as being superior to everyone who was not a Jew. We're the chosen. We're the heirs of the promises. We are God's people. all the while failing to understand the whole point of what Paul is leading them to in chapter three, verse nine here of Romans, where he says, what then? Are we Jews any better off? Paul asked that question. Are we Jews any better off? He says, no, not at all. For we have already charged that all, both Jews and Greeks are under sin. And many among the Jews had completely lost sight of this. Completely lost sight of it. That God chose them to display His goodness. God chose them to display His grace and His saving power, His righteousness, His holiness, not theirs. Yet they used the fact that they were Jews and recipients of great outward blessing from God to lift themselves up instead of lifting up the giver of the blessings. I'm reminded here of the words of our Lord in his letter to the church in Smyrna in Revelation 2.9. This church in Smyrna was a persecuted church. It was a church under tribulation. And he says in Revelation 2, 9, I know your tribulation and your poverty, but you are rich. And the slander of those who say they are Jews and are not, but are a synagogue of Satan. But are a synagogue of Satan. These, our Lord is speaking of here, had rejected grace. They had rejected the Savior. They had no idea what being a Jew really meant. And Christ says they are not true Jews, but they are in fact of the synagogue of Satan. Remember that passage in Deuteronomy 7 that we just read. God chose a people to redeem and save with his own mighty hand. And the vast majority of the Jews throughout history thought they were chosen and given all we will discuss here in a minute so that they could live in a way that earned their peace with God. Well, Paul goes on. to say that they also rely on the law. The law was given to them, wasn't given to others. It was given to them, not to the nations, but to them. The law, the knowledge of all that was required, what was required of them and what was forbidden. They can have full reliance, you see, upon the testimony of the law and by extension then also even the rest of the revelation given to them in the Old Testament. This was theirs. It was given to them. They were not in darkness like the nations. They had the written word that they could rely upon. Once again, what was the reaction to this? Instead of driving them to the promised savior, to the Messiah that was to come, they looked at this and said, we can do this. We can obey this. We will obey this. We can follow this. Is that not what they said, if you recall last week, when Joshua put that question before them? Then Paul says, you who call yourself a Jew and rely upon the law and boast in God. Now, it's a good thing to boast in God, is it not? Remember, there are two ways, two ways. Paul even says that it's good to boast in God, in the right sense of boasting in God. when he quoted the prophet Jeremiah in 2 Corinthians 1.31 when he says, as it is written, let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord. Paul says that. Let us boast. Let us boast in the Lord. But is this the attitude of the Jew that Paul is describing here in our text this morning? Or had the boasting in God been in fact a boasting of their own status as God's chosen people? A way for them to boast in the fact that they were the recipients of God's law. They counted among themselves the prophets of old. They came from God's people. They were the people in possession of the tabernacle, were they not? And later the temple, where what? Where God's presence dwelt. He dwelt in the midst of them. Had this not become a matter of pride where they lifted themselves up as being worthy of this, instead of the fact that it pictured their need of all that was being provided by God? Paul goes on in Romans 2.18, and know His will and approve what is excellent because you are instructed from the law. You say you know His will, Paul says. You Jews claim to know what pleases God and what incites Him to anger. You claim to know what He rewards and you claim to know what He punishes. Do you see how this differs? And it truly does differ from the Gentile world who had to grope in the darkness to know. Little to no light to find their way. The only light that they had was the dimness of what they saw by nature. Listen to what scripture says about this. Because truly the Jewish nation was given revealed word to show them what he approved of and what he didn't. To show him, should show them, excuse me, what his will was and what his will was not for them to do. Do this, don't do that, right? Listen to Psalm 147, 19 through 20. as the psalmist shows the difference between what Israel had, what the Jew had, and what the nations had. The psalmist says he declares his word to Jacob, his statutes and rules to Israel. He has not dealt thus with any other nation. They do not know his rules. Praise the Lord. The Jews claim to approve what is excellent because he in fact had revelation concerning the will of God. The thing which pleases God is to be approved. The thing which by the knowledge of his will displeases God is to be that which is rejected. How does the Jew claim to know this? Because he's instructed from the law, right? He's been given the law. It's been revealed to him. The law, you see, instructs or educates him to these things. Or maybe we should say that it should educate him to these things. Listen to what is recorded in Leviticus 10, 8 through 11. And the Lord spoke to Aaron, saying, Drink no wine or strong drink, you or your sons with you, when you go into the tent of meeting, lest you die. It shall be a statute forever throughout your generations. You are to distinguish between the holy and the common, and between the unclean and the clean, and you are to teach You are to teach the people of Israel all the statutes that the Lord has spoken to them by Moses. In Nehemiah 8, Ezra, the scribe, brings the book of the law of Moses and brings it before all the people, both male and female. He brings it before them. And he reads it from morning until midday. And listen, what we have recorded in Nehemiah 8 verse 8, they read from the book, from the law of God clearly. And they gave the sense so that the people understood the reading. They were instructed, you see, from the law in a way that the Gentiles never had. Why is it that the Jew may claim to know God's will, to approve what is excellent? Because he is instructed from the law. But I must ask in light of what Paul is leading us, where he's leading us this morning in our text, did the Jew here really understand the nature of the law and the purpose of the law? And what was his reaction to being the recipient of this law? What was it? Did he understand it? And what was his reaction to it? And then I must also ask us as Christians, what is the case with us? We who call ourselves Christian. who love the gospel of grace, who love and say we love and boast in God and in our Savior, we who claim to know His will, and we who claim to approve of these things that please Him, because we're instructed from the Scripture. Does it lead us to pride? Is that what it leads us to? Or does it lead us to humble ourselves before God and cry out like the psalmist does in Psalm 115 verse 1, not unto us, O Lord, not to us, but to your name give glory. Do we ascribe glory and worship to us and to our efforts, our working, or do we echo Psalm 29, 1 through 2, ascribe to the Lord, O heavenly beings, ascribe to the Lord glory and strength, ascribe to the Lord the glory, do His name, worship the Lord in the splendor of holiness. What does the knowledge that God has given us drive us to? What is our reaction to what the Lord has given us? Well, Paul then continues with what is claimed by the Jew as the outworking of what we have just seen. In Romans 2 19, he says, and if you are sure that you yourself are a guide to the blind, a light to those who are in darkness. Paul is saying that the Jew who has been given so much is quite sure that he is a guide to those who are spiritually blind. To all that he himself has been given, that he is, it is of him to show these things to those who are in a state of blindness and spiritual blindness. That in effect, his light is to be a light to those who are sitting in darkness. unable to see for the lack of light that has been given to them, to the nations, to the Gentiles. And it is what should have been the case in the right way. But remember, there's two ways. It should have been the case in the right way. God has dealt graciously mercifully with the nation of Israel in giving all these things to them. And they were to share these truths to everyone they came across as a light when it enters a dark room just dispels the darkness. To give sight to the spiritually blind who dwell in this darkness concerning God's law, His will, what is excellent, This is what they should have been doing rightly. This was the call of God, was it not, that even goes back all the way to Abraham. All the way to Abraham. Genesis 12, 3, where God tells Abraham, I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth. All the families of the earth shall be blessed. Is that just the Jews? It's all the families of the earth, all the nations. Genesis 18-18, seeing that Abraham shall surely become a great and mighty nation and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him. Genesis 22-18, and in your offspring, and we know who that's talking about. In your offspring shall all the nations of the earth be blessed." All the nations. And it's further revealed to us, maybe with a little bit more clarity, in Isaiah 42, 6, I am the Lord, I have called you in righteousness, I will take you by the hand and keep you, I will give you as a covenant for the people. What does he say here? A little bit more connected to our text, a light for the nations. A light for the nations. Isaiah 49, 6, he says, Is it to light a thing that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to bring back the preserved of Israel? I will make you as a light for the nations that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth. to the end of the earth, to all nations. This was the call of God's chosen people, you see, to be a light in the dark world, to lead those in a state of spiritual blindness. But once again, we must ask, by and large, what was the reaction to this privilege that the Jew here that Paul is dealing with had? What was his reaction? Was it one of humble thanks for what God was doing for them and the salvation he was working on their behalf as evidenced both spiritually and physically? as evidenced throughout the history of the nation of Israel over and over again in their bondage and in the picture of the ceremonies of sacrifices? Or did it lead them to pride? One way or the other, right? Humility, thankfulness, or pride, haughtiness. Romans 2.20 says, "...an instructor of the foolish, a teacher of children, having in the law the embodiment of knowledge and truth." Here Paul, I believe, is summarizing what he meant in the previous verse symbolically. The Jew was called and claimed to be an instructor of the foolish, of those who did not understand, those to whom it had not been revealed. He claimed to be a teacher of children or a teacher of babes. He had in the law, in the Old Testament Scriptures, the very embodiment of knowledge and truth. Here is the source of knowledge and truth regarding who God is, who they were, His plan of redemption, the means of salvation, the way of reconciliation, all given to them in the word that He had given them and revealed to them in His law, in pictures and types and shadows of the substance that was to come. but they themselves missed it. By and large, they missed it. They got caught up in the privilege and the pageantry of ceremony. They were overcome with boasting of knowledge and did not understand it from the heart. It was outward. And this was, unfortunately, what they were seeking to teach and to preach, to instruct. Do outwardly the things we are doing. Sacrifice as instructed. Pray as instructed. Wash as instructed. Tithe as instructed. Do the things that we are doing. All outward. All what they could do. Listen to what David, Listen to what David had to say, a Jew who was not just one outwardly. David was a Jew. Physically. And David was a Jew spiritually. Now listen to what he says in Psalm 51. That great song. for you will not delight, verse 16 and 17, for you will not delight in sacrifice, or I would give it. You will not be pleased with a burnt offering. The sacrifices of God, now listen, the sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken incontrite heart, Oh God, you will not despise. It wasn't of a lifted up heart and a prideful spirit. It was a broken heart and a contrite spirit that pleases God. It wasn't what was outward It was what was in the heart. Listen to what Christ says in Matthew 23, 23 through 24. Woe to you. Christ said that very same thing numerous times in scripture. And when Christ puts a woe into what he says, we better pay attention, right? Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, listen to what he says, hypocrites. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for you tie the mint and dill and cumin and have neglected the weightier matters of the law. What do you mean weightier matters of the law? Well, Jesus tells us justice and mercy and faithfulness. These are these you ought to have done without neglecting the others. You blind guides, straining out a gnat and swallowing a camel." What a description, blind guides. Blind guides, do you hear that? In light of what Paul is saying to us here from our text this morning, he's calling these Jews, these Pharisees, and these scribes, blind guides. Paul then goes on to prove his point in the rest of this passage. And that this Jew he is addressing as representative of this group is no better off than the Gentile who the Jew has placed in his mind far below him. The one who he looks down upon as being blind, ignorant, and groping around in darkness. Paul proves by what he says here that the heart of this Jew is not right with God. Romans 2, 21 through 22. You then who teach others, do you not teach yourself? While you preach against stealing, do you steal? You who say that one must not commit adultery, do you commit adultery? You who abhor idols, do you rob temples? Now these, and I don't know what your translation has, but these may be statements that Paul is making here as opposed to questions. You'll remember that the original text of this had no punctuation. But whether this is a statement or a question, it leads to the same understanding. My translation has it as questions which are rhetorical questions. They need not be answered because they are, in fact, more of a statement than they are a question in need of an answer. You teach others. Do you not teach yourself? They never taught themselves the things that they prided themselves of knowing. They never taught it to themselves. They never took it to heart. They never plumbed the depths of it. They never considered it to be something that applied to them. They gloried in the knowledge they had, but they did not put the knowledge into practice. All that they knew had no effect on them. Shakespeare, in his great work, Hamlet, makes a statement that we reference sometimes in our culture, we make a slight alteration to it based on who we're talking about or what we're talking about, but it's come into somewhat of a popular usage when he said, frailty, thy name is woman. Well, we might take that here this morning and say, hypocrisy, thy name is Jew. Hypocrisy, thy name is Jew. Paul is showing us here in our text that this Jew as representative of the vast majority of the Jews is the very definition of a hypocrite. The very definition. He knows in his head. He has a knowledge. He knows up here. but it's not applied to him. He teaches it, but he never teaches himself. He preaches against stealing, yet he himself is stealing. He says one must not commit adultery, yet he commits adultery. He abhors idols, but he robs temples. Paul is, in fact, either by this rhetorical questions that he's laying before this Jew or by the statements that he's putting before the Jew, he's addressing the fact that what the Jew is telling, teaching, preaching to others not to be done, he himself is doing. He is calling out the hypocrisy in those who boast in their position as the people of God. Listen to what Haldane says here. Haldane says, Was there ever a more beautiful veil than that under which the Jew presents himself? He's a man of confession, of praise, of thanksgiving, a man whose trust is in the law, whose boast is of God, who knows his will, who approves of things that are excellent, a man who calls himself a conductor of the blind, a light of those who are in darkness, an instructor of the ignorant, a teacher of babes, a man who directs others, who preaches against theft, against adultery, against idolatry, and to sum up the whole, a man who glories in the commandments of the Lord. Who would not say that this is an angel arrayed in human form, a star detached from the firmament and brought nearer to enlighten the earth? But observe what is concealed under the mask. It is a man who himself is untaught. It is a thief, an adulterer, a sacrilegious person in one word, a wicked man who continually dishonors God by transgression of his law. And this is just what Paul brings out in the very next verse. In verse 23, you who boast in the law dishonor God by breaking the law. Hypocrite, thy name is Jew. You boast in what you know, you boast in your calling, you boast in your position, you boast in your privilege. And certainly these things were all true, but you boast in these things, and then you dishonor the very one who gave you these things by breaking the very law which you boast of. So in reality, it is the blind leading the blind straight into a pit. A teacher who has need of being taught himself. A preacher who needs to be sitting under the preaching of the gospel. One who abhors idols whose life is full of them. Is the Jew then, here that Paul is speaking of, Is this Jew then here any better than any of the Gentiles? Not at all. They're all under sin. And before we rush to condemn the Jew, we must first take a look at our own hearts and see if there be any hypocrisy in us. I fear we're far too often like this Jew and we brag and we teach and we say we know His will. We speak as though we approve of what He approves and we disapprove of what He disapproves of. Yet what is the state and the condition of the heart? That's what's important. The heart. Are these things done that we may boast of knowledge? That we may boast of our privilege as Christians? or our position, or are they done in humble thanks from the heart knowing that we are nothing but vile, sinful creatures who have been the recipients of God's grace and mercy through Jesus Christ our Lord. So do we boast in the law? Do we boast in the gospel of God and then dishonor Him in the sacrifice of Christ on our behalf as we live in unrepentant sin? Do we love our sin in the heart and then boast of godliness on the outside? I don't want anybody to get me wrong here. We will sin. even after being regenerated, even after being given a new heart, we have what the Puritans always referred to as the remainders of indwelling sin. And we will continue to sin until the Lord brings us safely to glory. But what I'm asking is if you love the sin or hate the sin. Do you love the sin or do you hate the sin? Are you a hypocrite or a humble, repentant sinner standing in the work of Christ Jesus to be that which secures you and leads you to sorrow over the sin that you do commit? That's the difference between the heart and what's on the outside. Let me start to draw this to a close. Romans 2 verse 24, the last verse that we'll look at this morning. For it is as it is written. Let me get a running start at this with verse 23. You who boast in the law dishonor God by breaking the law. For as it is written, the name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you. Here is the effect of the hypocrisy. Here is the outworking of what Paul shows the Jew here in our text, the name of God, which was supposedly so revered by the Jew that he wouldn't even speak it. The name of God, which is the very embodiment of all He is. His righteousness, His power, His rule, His authority, His sovereignty, His holy character, His eternality. Everything that is God is included in what Paul is saying here, His name. God says, I am. Everything that He is. The name of God is blasphemed. It is insulted. It is ridiculed. It's cursed. It's slandered among the Gentiles because of you. This wasn't something that just existed here in the New Testament, you see. What is it that Paul says? For it is written. For it is written. The name of God is blasphemed because of you. He was quoting or at the very least making reference to the Old Testament here. Isaiah 52 5 says, Now therefore, what have I here, declares the Lord, seeing that my people are taken away for nothing, nothing, their rulers well, declares the Lord, and continually all the day my name is despised. His name is despised. It's blasphemed. 2 Samuel 2.14, as David has been approached by Nathan regarding David's sin, he says, nevertheless, because by this deed you have utterly scorned the Lord, the child who is born to you shall die. And then Nathan leaves and goes to his house. He has nothing more to say from the Lord. David, your actions have blasphemed the name of God. Ezekiel 36. 17 through 20, son of man, when the house of Israel lived in their own land, they defiled it by their ways and their deeds. Their ways before me were like the uncleanness of a woman in her menstrual impurity. So I poured out my wrath upon them for the blood that they had shed in the land. For the idols with which they had defiled it, I scattered them among the nations. and they were dispersed through the countries in accordance with their ways and their deeds, I judged them. But when they came to the nations, wherever they came, they profaned My holy name. In that the people said of them, These are the people of the Lord. And yet they had to go out of His land. The name of God was blasphemed. It was scorned. It was profaned. Do you see what the sin of the professing people of God leads to? When those on the outside see what they do, They look upon the sins of those who claim to be the people of this great God and this righteous one. And then they act in a way that causes these who observe to scoff at the Holy One. They ridicule God, who these people who are claiming to be God's people, are sinning in front of them and they're profaning, they're defiling, they're blaspheming the name of the Lord. And don't think that this is just the Jew. Don't think that this is just the one claiming to be a Jew. But what of all of us who claim the name of Christ, of Jesus Christ, the God-man, as our Lord? How many people, just talking with someone this week, who after about, I think about 20 years, stepped foot in a church for the very first time in 20 years because of what they saw in the people of the church that they went to 20 years ago. How many people won't darken the step of a church because they see the behavior of those who profess to be Christians and it blasphemes the name of God? Hypocrisy. They steal. They rob temples. They give room in their hearts for idols of every sort. They have an adulterous heart. They gossip. They curse everyone and everything. They boast in the gospel, but dishonor the God they claim to serve by the very words that they say and the deeds that they do. The very name of God is blasphemed among the world because of this. Well, Paul will go on to expound more upon this. But let me, in closing, if I can, shine a light into the darkness. God will not have his name blasphemed. Won't do it. After revealing what he did in Ezekiel 36 20, but when they came to the nations, wherever they came, they profaned my holy name. Just following this, what does our great God and our sovereign, holy, majestic ruler, say, Ezekiel 36, 21 through 27, but I had concern for my holy name, which the house of Israel had profaned among the nations to which they came. Therefore say to the house of Israel, thus says the Lord God, it is not for your sake, O house of Israel, that I'm about to act, but for the sake of my holy name, which you have profaned among the nations to which you came. I will, and I will vindicate the holiness of my great name, which has been profaned among the nations in which you profaned among them. Do you see how many times God is dealing with these people here through the prophet Ezekiel, telling them what they've done to his name? But he's going to vindicate his holy name. And the nations will know that I am the Lord, declares the Lord God, when through you I vindicate my holiness before their eyes. How's he gonna do this? How's he gonna do this? They're set about to profane his name. In their sin, they are blaspheming the name of God. How's he gonna vindicate his name? I will take you from the nations and gather you from all the countries and bring you into your own land. I will sprinkle clean water on you and you shall be clean from all your unrighteousness and from all your idols. I will cleanse you and I will give you a new heart and a new spirit I will put within you and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh and I will put my spirit within you and cause you and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules. You think for one second we can do that apart from God? He says, I will cause you to do these things. This is our hope and what the Jew here in Paul's address has missed. They boast in God and his law, but do not understand what it is meant to show them, to show their need, not their ability, to show their need. To show them the need of God to do for us what we are unable to do for ourselves. And for us to cease striving. And to rest in what He is doing. To rest in the work of Christ. You see, we are saved by works. We're saved by works, but we're not saved by a single solitary work that we could ever do. We're saved by the work of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, on our behalf. There's no amount of working that you can do that you can accomplish in accordance with the law that will reconcile you to God, not in any way, shape, or form. But Christ did all and did it on behalf of His people that truly our boasting may be rightly in Him, not in us, but that when we say we boast in God, We mean that we boast in everything that he has done on account of our inability to do anything at all to recommend us to God the Father. It's all the work of Christ. Let's pray.