"For I can testify about them that they are zealous for God, but there zeal is not based on knowledge."
Romans 10:2

PAUL is not content just to express his care for the lost, but he goes on to express the tragedy of the lost. Again he does it in the context of the Jews and their condition, but what is so important is the fact that what Paul describes concerning the lost amongst the Jews, is in fact true of everyone else as well.

Paul's statement here is profoundly significant for the church today amongst every denomination and every fellowship, at least as I perceive it, in the United Kingdom. If anything describes the condition of the church and church members today, it is this statement which Paul makes here. The church today is, generally speaking, in the same condition as the Jewish people in the time of St. Paul, and this shows that many, if not most, of the members of every congregation, though thinking themselves to be on the road to heaven, as the Jews of Paul's day did, are in fact still lost, and without God, without hope, in the world.

The fault of all human religious aspirations is described here. Natural religion always sees the way to God and God's favour in establishing our own righteousness. How this is done is set forth in many and various ways in the various different schools of thought, but it all amounts to the same thing, and that is a seeking to establish our own righteousness. Paul points out that this way is an utter failure, and all those who depend on this will find out their loss when it is too late in hell.

ZEALOUS FOR GOD.

When we see some zealous for God we applaud it, and rightly so. The fact is that the majority are running swiftly to hell on the broad way which leads to destruction without any thought of God, and so if some step out of the stream, and seek God, to know him, and be blessed by him, this is a mighty step forward. Zeal for God is therefore good. The trouble is that zeal for God is not enough. Zeal must be targeted in the right direction. If it is not, then all the zeal in the world will have no effect in gaining favour with God and saving our soul.

These days it is felt to be sufficient that a person seeks God and follows a religious life. However the prevalent belief is that how we seek God is of no importance, but that what is important is that we do seek God. In this climate every religion and every faith contributes to finding God, and whichever type of religion a person chooses does not matter for all lead to God. There are many ways to God is the cry today. If people do not go this far, and still say the only right religion is the Christian religion, still there is a feeling that zeal for God is what matters, and not what a person believes or how they worship God. All that matters is we seek God zealously, and all will be well because God will honour our zeal and accept us. God is felt never to reject anyone who is sincere and zealous after God.

Paul speaks here very clearly that zeal, though good as far as it goes, is not enough, and that zeal must be directed in the right way. Paul reveals that it does matter how we seek God, and that it must be God's way, or we will never draw near to God.

BASED ON KNOWLEDGE.

We need to notice seriously and clearly how Paul speaks in these verses. He speaks of the Jews having zeal which is not based on knowledge. Here is the first thing we need to grasp. It was not that the Jews had no knowledge. There are no human beings which have no knowledge at all, for all of us can think, though some better than others. The Jews had plenty of knowledge, and it was knowledge that was based on revelation given to them by God. The Jews had teachers of the law who expounded the law of God revealed to them by Moses, and recorded as the inspired word in the Old Testament. The trouble was that the knowledge they had, though believed to be founded on the revelation of God, was not true knowledge.

Here is our trouble as fallen human beings. We have the knowledge of the Scriptures, the inspired Word of God, but it is not having the Scriptures and reading and studying them that is enough. What is important is how we come to the Scriptures. The Jews had religion with knowledge of the Scriptures, but still they did not have saving knowledge, and the reason was that they came to the Scriptures in the pride of their intellect and own understanding, and it was human wisdom that was the means they used for their understanding.

Here is human dilemma. We have minds and we are meant to use them, and so we argue that we must evaluate the Scripture by our own wisdom. Paul trenchantly exposes this way of gaining knowledge. He says in 1 Corinthians 1:21 “For since in the wisdom of God the world in its wisdom did not know him...”. In this human spirit we shall only hear what we want to hear in God's Word, and if there is anything that impinges on our minds which offends our human wisdom, we will move heaven and earth to find a way around what is being said, and if this is not possible we will argue in some way which allows us to reject what we read. We will never have true saving knowledge in this way. Our zeal for God may be very great, but because our zeal is not based on true knowledge we shall never find God.

The trouble with human wisdom is that it is blind to spiritual truth. Paul goes on to speak in this way - “Since they did not know the righteousness that comes from God.” If we have have made up our mind about truth we will never hear or understand the righteousness that comes from God, and we will still pursue a righteousness of our own. Human knowledge causes blindness in spiritual things. The churches today in Great Britain are filled with such human knowledge, and because it is human wisdom it finds acceptance with hearers. Because of this the blindness to true knowledge becomes even more great, and it is harder for the true knowledge to penetrate into consciousness.

ATTAINING TRUE KNOWLEDGE.

How can this problem be solved? How indeed! There is none so blind as do not want to see or think they do see. Anything that is said or done to correct this blindness of understanding is like water off a duck's back. It seems to slide of in every direction, and all efforts to penetrate this darkness seems to be battering at reinforced doors. So where can true knowledge be attained?

I have spoken earlier in this sermon of the Jews basing their knowledge on the Scriptures, but also pointing out that this was done in such a way that they did not attain true knowledge. From this we can see that attaining true saving knowledge means that we must come with the right attitude to the Bible. The Bible is truly the Word of God, and it is true that we need to come to the Bible seeking to understand its message and we do this with our minds, but there is more we need to see.

We must accept first of all that the Bible is the Word of God, and that it is inspired by God and that it is infallible. We must not come to the Bible judging it by human wisdom, but humbly accepting it as it really is, which is the true revelation of God, and that what is told us in its pages is true and must be submitted to. Submission is the word we must hold to. Unless we submit to the plain meaning and message of the Bible we will not come to it in the right way, and so our faith will not be based on knowledge, that is the knowledge which God gives.

Then we must accept the Bible teaching about righteousness. In the first place we must accept that God requires from us all for our acceptance that we are righteous and holy as he, God, is righteous and holy. We must accept that the standard of righteous that is meant is the perfect righteousness of God, and that unless we have such righteousness all we can accept from God is condemnation and the punishment of Hell.

Further we must accept the Bible testimony that on this standard there is none of righteous, no not one, and so as far as righteousness we may work by ourselves there is no one who can work a righteousness that comes up to God's standard, and therefore we are lost and condemned. We can't even argue that we can make a decision to commence being righteous, and the past can be forgotten. This will not do because God can't overlook our past, and sins in the past have to be punished in order that God may be just and holy. It is impossible for God to overlook sin. Justice must be executed against sin. Further to this is the fact that however sincere we are in our determination to lived perfectly righteously in the future, the Bible tells us that we are unable to do this, and that the best we can produce falls far short of the righteousness that God demands.

We must accept the Bible testimony that in ourselves we are lost and condemned, because God has said that the soul who sins must die, and the wages of sin is death. True knowledge begins with us understanding and accepting that we are lost, and our sins shut us off from God unless there is a remedy. This is so hard for so many, but until we come to this knowledge, and bow in submission to it, we will never see the righteousness that comes from God, and will in some way seek to establish our own righteousness before God by our own effort.

Unless we gain this knowledge we will never be saved. Unless we know our total poverty of any righteousness, and accept that we deserve utter condemnation for that unrighteousness, we will never seek or submit to the righteousness which comes from God, and will go out of our way to establish, by our own efforts, a righteousness which will make us acceptable to God. Without this consciousness and knowledge of our sin and sinfulness, we will never come to Christ in the right way, and so find eternal salvation in him. As Paul says we will not submit to the righteousness that comes from God.

CONCLUSION.