Welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the book of Romans. Tonight is study #7 of Romans 2, and we are continuing to read Romans 2:5-11:

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; Who will render to every man according to his deeds: To them who by patient continuance in well doing seek for glory and honour and immortality, eternal life: But unto them that are contentious, and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, indignation and wrath, Tribulation and anguish, upon every soul of man that doeth evil, of the Jew first, and also of the Gentile; But glory, honour, and peace, to every man that worketh good, to the Jew first, and also to the Gentile: For there is no respect of persons with God.

I will stop reading there. In our last study, we were looking at verse 5, and we discussed man’s hard and impenitent heart that treasures up unto himself wrath against the day of wrath.

Again, the word “impenitent,” which is only found in this verse, is a compound word. It is the Greek word for “repent,” Strong’s #3344, and it is negated. That is, it has the alpha prefix which negates it, and it means “no repentance.” And just to look at that a little further, let us look at Revelation 2, where God is speaking to the church at Thyatira, but it applies to all the churches throughout the church age. We read in Revelation 2:20-23:

Notwithstanding I have a few things against thee, because thou sufferest that woman Jezebel, which calleth herself a prophetess, to teach and to seduce my servants to commit fornication, and to eat things sacrificed unto idols. And I gave her space to repent of her fornication; and she repented not. Behold, I will cast her into a bed, and them that commit adultery with her into great tribulation, except they repent of their deeds. And I will kill her children with death; and all the churches shall know that I am he which searcheth the reins and hearts: and I will give unto every one of you according to your works.

The Lord was warning the church at Thyatira concerning their allowing Jezebel to teach and seduce His servants to commit fornication. That is referring to Satan’s emissaries and their work within the congregations. Then He said He gave her space to repent of her fornications, but she repented not. That is, God gave the churches space to repent of their spiritual fornication all throughout the church age, which was almost 2,000 years of opportunity to have repented. That is the space that is in view, which was actually 1,955 years of the church age. And when they failed to repent, God cast them into a bed of “great tribulation” when judgment began at the house of God (in 1988). We can see through the corporate church’s failure to repent that they were actually storing up wrath against the day of wrath, as judgment began at the house of God. That is when the day of wrath began, and God’s final judgment program began. Then the Lord began to pour out His wrath on the churches of the world. It was a grievous outpouring of the wrath of God to take away His Holy Spirit (the “daily” was removed), and God loosed Satan and allowed him to enter into the midst of the churches and take his seat to rule where Christ had previously ruled. God turned them over to the power of Satan and his evil forces, as He ended salvation and put out the light of the Gospel, and so forth. It was a ferocious wrath that was falling on the churches and congregations, and it can all be traced back to the fact that churches did not repent, thus storing up wrath for the time of God’s outpouring of His wrath.

Now as far as the world is concerned, we can go to Acts 17 because we know there is a two-fold focus in God’s final judgment. He began judgment with the people called by His name (the New Testament churches), and then it transitioned to the world, who were not His people and did not have a close relationship with Him as did the churches, but, still, they are His creatures that were created in His own image. So just as the churches were engaged in spiritual fornication and idolatry, the people of the world are, likewise, engaged in the same thing, as we read in Acts 17 when the Apostle Paul went to Mars Hill in Athens, and he saw the inscription: “TO THE UNKNOWN GOD.” Then we read in Acts 17:24-31:

God that made the world and all things therein, seeing that he is Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands; Neither is worshipped with men’s hands, as though he needed any thing, seeing he giveth to all life, and breath, and all things; And hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation; That they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him, and find him, though he be not far from every one of us: For in him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also his offspring. Forasmuch then as we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and man’s device. And the times of this ignorance God winked at; but now commandeth all men every where to repent: Because he hath appointed a day, in the which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained; whereof he hath given assurance unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead.

God, through the Apostle Paul, brings up the truth that mankind has made images of God of gold, silver and stones that were graven by man’s device, and they worshipped them. In past times, God had winked at this. The word “winked” is an interesting word. It is a compound word that basically means to “behold over” or to “above look.” In our modern day, we would say “to overlook” something. That is the meaning of what is being said. God had overlooked this, just as He had put up with the sins of the churches and gave space for them to repent. And in a somewhat similar way, He did this with the whole world, and He allowed them their time for repentance, but He had appointed a day when He would judge the world in righteousness, and that “day” is our present period of time. We have entered in the Day of Judgment or the day of God’s wrath. We are presently living on the earth in the official Day of Judgment.

Again, it says in Romans 2:5:

But after thy hardness and impenitent heart treasurest up unto thyself wrath against the day of wrath…

The Greek word translated as “against” is the word “en,” and it is a preposition that is most often translated as “in.” And that is how it should be translated in Romans 2:5: “But after thy hardness and impenitent heart treasurest up unto thyself wrath in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God.”

The word “wrath” is the word “orgē” in the Greek, and it is found 36 times. It is translated 31 times as “wrath,” and just a few times as different words. This is something that mankind has “stored up.” He has treasured up wrath in the day of wrath. So the translators translated it as “against the day of wrath,” just to give the idea that is as though man’s sins piled up as he offended and broke God’s Law in thought, word, and deed. How many sins have people committed over the course of all time that has unfolded on this earth? It is innumerable. We could never count the sins, but they have been “stored up,” as it were, for the appointed day of judgment, as it said in Acts 17. God has selected a day, and as we have learned from the Bible, when the Lord speaks of the “day of wrath” or the “day of judgment,” it does not mean that it is a single 24-hour period. God referred to the “day of temptation” in Hebrews 3, and that “day” lasted for 40 years. We could also look at the reign of King David, which the Bible speaks of as a “day,” but it was also a 40-year period. So the Lord has given leeway and it is according to His good pleasure to speak of a “day” and apply it to a longer period of time, as long as it harmonizes with the other Scriptures. And there is plenty of biblical precedent for doing this, and that is God’s prerogative and according to His pleasure to do so, and that is what He has done.

As we have discussed before, the Bible speaks of the “day of salvation,” and we do not normally find people arguing that it has to be “24 hours,” because everybody likes that idea. Everybody likes the fact that the “day of salvation” stretched for millenniums. There was no argument with God using that language referring to it as a day. People do not try to dispute that and say, “Well, we have to take the Bible literally, and if God says a day, He means a day, so it is one day, the day of salvation.” No – they do not do that because it is teaching something they like. So, all of a sudden, man’s mind is somehow able to perceive and understand that it is an elongated period of time. But when God teaches something man does not like, and it disturbs him and he prefers that it not be the case, then man says, “Oh, look, it says the day of wrath or the Day of Judgment, and you have to take the plain, literal meaning of the Bible. You cannot make it to say what you want it to say!”

But who is really trying to make the Bible say what they want it to say? They are simply individuals that are trying to ward off the wrath of God and trying to put off “the evil day.” But the Bible will not allow that. If it is acceptable to understand the “day of salvation” to be a very prolonged, extended period of time, then it is equally acceptable to understand the “day of wrath” or the Day of Judgment to be a prolonged period of time, and that is what the Bible is teaching. The Day of Judgment began, officially, in 1994 and we expect it to go 40 years because of the biblical evidence to the year 2033. It began with judgment on the churches, and it transitioned on May 21, 2011 to judgment on the world, and now we are in that “second tribulation,” the judgment of the world, that will continue all the way to that last day. And, again, according to the evidence from the Bible, we expect that to take place in the year 2033.

So the time leading up to May 21, 2011 was the time when men were “storing up wrath against” this very day of wrath. It is the time of God’s anger. It is the time of the outpouring of His wrath, which is why He has shut the door insofar as salvation is concerned. And there are numbers of people that just do not get it. They just do not understand, and when they hear EBible Fellowship teach that there is no more salvation, but time is continuing and the sun is rising and setting and another 24-hour day passes, they say, “No! No! That cannot be, and God would not end His salvation program and stop saving people. What about the children being born? What about other young people? God just would not do this!” And, God would not do this if it were not the “day of wrath,” Judgment Day. These same people visualize Judgment Day according to their understanding that Christ will come in the literal clouds and everyone can see Him. Everyone is aware of it, and then all must be judged, and it will all take place in a single day. And they realize there is no salvation at that point. Is God obligated to bestow mercy on anyone once He has come as Judge of the earth? Of course not, and these very same people would admit that. “He will only come when He has completed His salvation.”

Exactly, and that is what has happened. He has come, and He has shut the door of heaven, and He is pouring out spiritual judgment on all the unsaved inhabitants of the earth because it is Judgment Day. But you must not think of it as just a single day, and it is not “seen” in the visible world. That is, the judgment of God is not being so much seen, although evidence of it can be seen in the division going on in the world. The judgment of God is not observed in the physical world. It is a spiritual judgment that the Bible is teaching. The Word is judging in these last days, and it can be observed through “eyes of faith,” as God opens the understanding of His people to the Scriptures that are bringing the revelation of the righteous judgment of God to the forefront. That is where it can be seen and understood.

And then what EBible Fellowship is teaching fits. It matches and lines up in perfect harmony with the fact that Christ has come as Judge. Christ, the Word, has come as Judge, first in the churches. There was no salvation within the churches once the Lord came to judge the churches. And that was a prolonged judgment period, too, was it not? And that is a “pattern” we can look back on and learn from, and we can apply it to the judgment on the world. In Jeremiah 25, the cup (of wrath) that was given to the city called by God’s name, the New Testament churches, and then the same cup was given to the nations of the world. It is the identical cup of wrath.

And, by the way, as we allow the Bible to define its own terms, when we read of the “cup of the wrath of God,” we can look at God’s judgment on man back in the Garden of Eden. It was spiritual judgment. Or, we can look at the Lord Jesus Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane as He was pleading, “Father,…remove this cup from me: nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done.” Nobody could see the judgment. Nobody could see God’s hand with a sword in it smiting Christ, literally, as He was in the garden. Nobody saw a visible “cup of wrath,” but it was invisible because He was suffering a spiritual judgment in that demonstration. So, there again, the cup that Christ had to drink of was spiritual, and the cup that God gave to the corporate church was spiritual and invisible. God had said there would not be one stone left upon another, but it was not to be taken literally. It was a spiritual truth, indicating a spiritual desolation (destruction) of all the churches in the world. Likewise, the same cup was given to the people of the world, and they are drinking it at this time. That is why the world is in the chaotic condition it is in. We are seeing the evidence of the fall of Satan’s kingdom and the fall of the world. “The world is fallen, is fallen!” That is what it means when we read, “Babylon is fallen, is fallen.” The world has fallen. It has been “divided,” and we read in Revelation 16:19:

And the great city was divided into three parts, and the cities of the nations fell: and great Babylon came in remembrance before God, to give unto her the cup of the wine of the fierceness of his wrath.

Notice that it mentions the “cities of the nations fell,” and then the very next statement is that “great Babylon came in remembrance before God, to give unto her the cup of the wine of the fierceness of his wrath.” Therefore, Babylon is defined as “the cities of the nations.” It is the (unsaved) inhabitants of the earth that make up spiritual Babylon, which is the kingdom of Satan of the nations of the earth. And to “her” God gave the cup of the wine of the wrath of God.

Or, we could go back to Revelation 14:8:

And there followed another angel, saying, Babylon is fallen, is fallen, that great city, because she made all nations drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication.

Then it says in Revelation 14:9-10:

And the third angel followed them, saying with a loud voice, If any man worship the beast and his image, and receive his mark in his forehead, or in his hand, The same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of his indignation; and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb:

In the context of Babylon being fallen (repeated twice), it says, “the same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God.” And there is no question when we read verses 10 and 11 of Revelation 14 that it is describing the world’s final judgment. This is the time of the wrath of God. God is punishing the (unsaved) inhabitants of the earth.

And at the same time, we know that the Lord has left His people in the world to go through the prolonged judgment day period. He left us in the churches when judgment began at the house of God, so why would we think He would take us out of this world before He begins to judge the world? And, of course, He did not, and that is why we were so confused and troubled after May 21, 2011. We had expected to be delivered and taken out of the world and to be relieved from having to go through what the world would have to experience, as far as the “five months” of torment. We have since learned that this “five months” was a figurative number that pointed to the overall length of the prolonged Judgment Day period. It took us some time, and God had to open up our spiritual understanding to realize that the Bible says that there is one event to all, the righteous and the wicked. The storm comes against both houses, the house of the wise as well as the house of the fool, but it is the house of the wise that endures through the storm. “But he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved.” God is severely trying His people, but it will bring Him and us great glory as we stand at the last on that very last day.