• As we come to our passage in Romans 2 today, Paul is responding to those who are asking questions about God’s

. How can God judge people He never revealed Himself to? How can God condemn a person to hell who never had a chance to respond to Jesus?
• To answer this question, Paul appeals to a universal characteristic of the human heart.
• Ever since Romans 1:18, Paul has shown how God has revealed Himself to

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people &, left to themselves, everyone has rejected God.
• To the pagan in Romans 1 >> The Created

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with all of the laws that govern it that we are subject to that reveal the God of power to whom we are all accountable
• To the Jew in Romans 2 >> the Revealed

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with all of the covenants, promises, & truths that make known the specifics of God’s nature
• To the person trying to do what they think is right (moralist) in Romans 2 >> the moral fingerprints of God are on every human heart, even though it has been corrupted by sin.

Romans 2:14-16

14 For when Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law.

• In a world where so many people emphasize & exploit our differences, here we find one thing that makes all human beings similar: We all have a sense of justice, fairness, or right & wrong.
• law…law…law…law >> The first, second, & fourth occurrences of the word “law” in this passage are pointing to the Ten Commandments points to another law that is not written on tablets of stone.
• In his book, Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis pointed to Universal Laws in Nature like gravity, heredity, chemistry, etc. & spoke of how all men are subject to these laws.  We cannot see these laws. They haven’t been written down in some heavenly textbook. But they are present. They have been discovered because all people are naturally subject to these laws. Paul is saying that there are more unseen laws of nature that deal with right & wrong.  But while we are forced to obey natural laws like gravity, we are given a choice as to whether or not to follow the laws of right & wrong.  You don’t have to teach a child to follow the law of gravity, but you do have to teach them to follow the law of right & wrong.

15  They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness, and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them 16  on that day when, according to my gospel, God judges the secrets of men by Christ Jesus.

• Stated positively, we all have the law written on our hearts, but Paul also points to the negative side of it, that all human beings are plagued with

consciences.
• Have you ever heard someone talk about having or following their moral compass? This is a person’s conscience.
• MacArthur >> That instinctive sense of right and wrong that produces guilt when violated. In addition to an innate awareness of God’s law, men have a warning system that activates when they choose to ignore or disobey that law.
• Conscience is like an inner

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that accuses and condemns us when we have done wrong and approves and commends us when we have done right. The conscience varies in sensitivity, depending on the degree of one’s knowledge of and feeling about right and wrong. The person who has considerable knowledge of God’s Word will have a more sensitive conscience than someone who has never had opportunity to know Scripture. Furthermore, repeated sinning hardens the conscience so that it becomes “seared” like scar tissue. To continually reject God’s truth causes the conscience to become progressively calloused, hardened and less sensitive to sin, as if covered with layers of unspiritual scar tissue.
• A.W. Tozer >> Conscience singles you out as though nobody else existed. God has given us a faithful witness inside of our own being…It is able to single a man out and reveal his loneliness, the loneliness of a single soul in the universe going on to meet an angry God. That’s the terror of the conscience. Conscience never deals with theories. Conscience always deals with right and wrong and the relation of the individual to that which is right or wrong. Remember the conscience is always on God’s side! It judges conduct in the light of the moral law, and as the Scripture says, excuses or accuses.”

Conclusion
• Don’t follow your

, but do follow your

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. Don’t ignore that conviction when you do wrong. This is God’s witness that you need the provision of Jesus the Savior to deliver you.
• God is worthy of worship because He not only tells us what is

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, He tells us how to get

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with Him. He tells us how to deal with our guilt. He

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us to do what is right.