Welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the book of Romans. Tonight is study #17 of Romans 2, and we are still reading Romans 2:8-11:

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. We have been talking about God’s end time judgment program, which is a two-fold judgment process that began on the churches (the people called by His name), and then transitioned to the world. And, again, the context here is “the day of wrath and the revelation of the righteous judgment of God.” And that is the context in which we read: “Tribulation and anguish, upon every soul of man that doeth evil, of the Jew first, and also of the Gentile.” This is the program, and this is how God lays it out. It always begins with His people. This was true in the Old Testament, as well as the New Testament.

Before we look at some verses that show that, let us look at the word “Gentile.” This is not the typical word for Gentile. This word is the Greek word “Hellēn,” and it is translated as “Greek” about twenty times in the New Testament, and it is translated as “Gentile” only seven times. There is another Greek word that is translated as “Gentile,” or “nations” or “heathen.” It is the word “ethnos,” from with we get the English word “ethnicity,” and it is Strong’s #1484. That is not our word. Our word is the Greek word “Hellēn,” so it could read, “to the Jew first, and also of the Greek.”

But we have to keep in mind that the Greeks ruled the world for centuries, which is why so many people spoke Greek and were under Greek influence, just as the Roman Empire would spread and much of the world would be under Roman influence. And remember that at one point, the Apostle Paul said he was a Roman citizen, so he was a citizen of Rome, but also a Jew.

Likewise, when God uses this term in saying, “to the Jew first, and also of the Gentile (Greek),” it has to do with the Greek being used as a figure of all the people of the world, since that was the great power of that period of time that was known as the Hellenistic Period, which means to speak Greek or identify with the Greeks. And it comes from the word “Hellēn,” which was translated here as “Gentile.”

We will look at a few places where this word is used. It says in Romans 10:11-13:

For the scripture saith, Whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed. For there is no difference between the Jew and the Greek: for the same Lord over all is rich unto all that call upon him. For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.

Regarding “the Jew and Greek,” which is the identical language of our verse in Romans 2, it is indicating anyone in the world, whether a Jew or a Greek or a person that is a non-Jew or person of the nations. Very clearly, the term “Greek” is representing all that are not Jews.

It says in Galatians 3:27-30:

For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus. And if ye be Christ’s, then are ye Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.

It is not just saying there are Jews and then there are individuals of Greek heritage. No – that would not make sense. This is all encompassing: “…bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.” It is all the other people in the world, whoever they are, that are typified as Greek.

Also, in John 7 we find the Jews speaking to Christ, and it says in John 7:33:

Then said Jesus unto them, Yet a little while am I with you, and then I go unto him that sent me. Ye shall seek me, and shall not find me: and where I am, thither ye cannot come. Then said the Jews among themselves, Whither will he go, that we shall not find him? will he go unto the dispersed among the Gentiles, and teach the Gentiles?

That is the same word translated as “Greek.”

Let us look at one more place, in Romans 3:9-10:

What then? are we better than they? No, in no wise: for we have before proved both Jews and Gentiles, that they are all under sin; As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one:

The reference to Gentiles is our word, and both Jews and Greeks are under sin. “There is none righteous, no, not one.”

Then it says in Romans 3:11-12:

There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God. They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one.

Now I have often gone to this passage, as so many of the Lord’s people have done, in order to show that the Bible teaches that no human being is righteous or seeks after God in a way that is acceptable to God, and to show that no human being is good. And yet, God is referring to Jews and Gentiles or Jews and Greeks. Is it just limited to those two nations? No – it includes all the people of the earth, broken into these two categories: 1) those that identify with the kingdom of God (the Jew of the Old Testament or the Christians of the New Testament; and 2) those that do not identify with the kingdom of God (the other people of the world).

And that is how it is being used in the verse we read back in Romans 2:9: “Tribulation and anguish, upon every soul of man that doeth evil…” You see, it is an all-encompassing statement. Every soul of man is broken up into those that have identification with God and those that do not – the Jew and the Gentile. This is why when we read there is tribulation to the Jew first, or those that have identification of God, we can understand it is because the “Jew” is a picture of the New Testament Christians, and God has clearly laid that out as far as His program of judgment. So we want to look at that again, in 1Peter 4:17:

For the time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God…

And the judgment was the Great Tribulation. Judgment must begin at the house of God, and notice the word “begin.” That is where it starts, so it was first. Then it says in 1Peter 4:17:

… and if it first begin at us, what shall the end be of them that obey not the gospel of God?

The verse has already referred to judgment beginning “at us,” which identifies with the house of God, and then the question is asked: “…what shall the end be of them that obey not the gospel of God?” It is another group or another people that is in view, the Greek or Gentile, which are those that do not identify with the kingdom of God and the Word of God, and they “do not obey the gospel of God.”

We can also go to the Old Testament, and in Jeremiah 25 there are two times God is speaking of the cup of wrath. It says in Jeremiah 25:15-16:

For thus saith JEHOVAH God of Israel unto me; Take the wine cup of this fury at my hand, and cause all the nations, to whom I send thee, to drink it. And they shall drink, and be moved, and be mad, because of the sword that I will send among them.

God was telling Jeremiah to take the cup of wrath and cause all nations (the whole world) to drink it. Then it says in Jeremiah 25:17-18:

Then took I the cup at the JEHOVAH’S hand, and made all the nations to drink, unto whom JEHOVAH had sent me: To wit, Jerusalem, and the cities of Judah and the kings thereof, and the princes thereof, to make them a desolation, an astonishment, an hissing, and a curse; as it is this day;

Jerusalem and Judah were the first ones named because judgment begins at the house of God. So the cup of wrath or the judgment of God began with Jerusalem, the holy city, and the cities of Judah or the land of Judah, which were the outward representatives of the kingdom of God on earth in the Old Testament, but they also typified the New Testament churches and congregations.

Again, it says in Jeremiah 25:18:

To wit, Jerusalem, and the cities of Judah and the kings thereof, and the princes thereof, to make them a desolation, an astonishment, an hissing, and a curse; as it is this day;

Then it goes on to say in Jeremiah 25:19-26:

Pharaoh king of Egypt, and his servants, and his princes, and all his people; And all the mingled people, and all the kings of the land of Uz, and all the kings of the land of the Philistines, and Ashkelon, and Azzah, and Ekron, and the remnant of Ashdod, Edom, and Moab, and the children of Ammon, And all the kings of Tyrus, and all the kings of Zidon, and the kings of the isles which are beyond the sea, Dedan, and Tema, and Buz, and all that are in the utmost corners, And all the kings of Arabia, and all the kings of the mingled people that dwell in the desert, And all the kings of Zimri, and all the kings of Elam, and all the kings of the Medes, And all the kings of the north, far and near, one with another, and all the kingdoms of the world, which are upon the face of the earth: and the king of Sheshach shall drink after them.

God commanded Jeremiah to take the cup and cause all the nations of the world to drink. And he took it, and he began with Jerusalem and Judah, and then he gave it to all the nations and kingdoms of the world upon the face of the earth. Then we read in Jeremiah 25:27:

Therefore thou shalt say unto them, Thus saith JEHOVAH of hosts, the God of Israel; Drink ye, and be drunken, and spue, and fall, and rise no more, because of the sword which I will send among you. And it shall be, if they refuse to take the cup at thine hand to drink, then shalt thou say unto them, Thus saith JEHOVAH of hosts; Ye shall certainly drink. For, lo, I begin to bring evil on the city which is called by my name, and should ye be utterly unpunished? Ye shall not be unpunished: for I will call for a sword upon all the inhabitants of the earth, saith JEHVOAH of hosts.

The city called by His name is the “house of God,” the churches, as typified by Jerusalem and Judah. “And should ye be utterly unpunished?” You see, God is talking to the nations: “I have already brought judgment on the churches.” And we can say that today, too, because God already judged the churches of the world for a full 23 years, and then came May 21, 2011, and the earth was “holding its breath,” as it were. They were waiting expectantly and anxiously, and nothing happened. There was nothing physical that they could see. Nothing had shifted around. The world was still here, and the graves did not open. So they celebrated: “We are safe! The coast is clear! Let us eat, drink, and be merry, and let us forget about the Bible. Forget about the God of the Bible. Forget about Judgment Day and all that silly talk, and let us go back to enjoying our lives, and never give it another thought. These people that brought this message to the world are fools and liars.” It was just open season on the true believers, and they would “roast” us in whatever way they wanted to roast us. And the churches agreed, and the world and the churches “held hands” in their rejoicing because the churches had insisted, “No man knows the day and the hour,” and they felt they had been proven correct. So the world relaxed and breathed a collective sigh of relief that it did not happen.

And we did not understand at that time what was happening, but now we do understand, by God’s grace, and we realize that God brought a spiritual judgment to pass upon the churches. The cup of wrath that the churches drank of as judgment began at the house of God was a spiritual judgment, and spiritual judgments are invisible judgments, but they are real. It was true wrath, and it did, indeed, lay the whole church world desolate on the spiritual level. We have to remember that God is the author of the Bible, and He is the Judge, and He is a Spirit, so the nature of the judgment on the churches was spiritual. It was really the Word of God that pronounced it, condemning the churches, and turning them into a wasteland. It was the departure of the Holy Spirit that could not be seen during the time when He was in the congregations, and so, too, it could not be seen when He had departed out. And Satan had been loosed out of the bottomless pit to enter into the churches and congregations of the world to take his seat in the temple and rule over them. And Satan is also a spirit being.

So all these things are spiritual. God is Spirit. Satan, the fallen angel, is a spirit being. The Holy Spirit is a Spirit, and the Word of God that pronounced the judgment is spiritual, and so forth. It was all spiritual. And the same cup of wrath, which was the identical cup, was then handed out to the nations, and the nations of the world were to drink of that cup of the wrath of God in a spiritual way. It is a spiritual judgment that cannot be seen. It is invisible, especially to sinners that have no eyes to see because they are dead in their souls or spirits. They have no spiritual life, no spiritual perception, and no ability to perceive spiritual truth. Therefore, they saw nothing, and they continue to see nothing, as far as the wrath of God is concerned and the things the Bible says, but that does not mean that it did not happen. It does not mean that at all.

God fulfilled His Word, and He caused His people to use great care and time and to use practically all our resources to proclaim to the world in a mighty way that May 21, 2011 would be the Day of Judgment, the day that the door would shut, and the day when God would being pouring out His wrath. And what has been going on in the world since then? There is division and constant chaos, and there is the failing and the falling of Babylon in the entertainment world, the sports world, the news media, the scientific world, the educational systems and in the political systems, as they are all being publicly shamed and humiliated, and everyone is doing battle with one another, just as the Bible had said regarding the end of Satan and his kingdom: “A house divided cannot stand.” Babylon cannot stand: “Babylon is fallen, is fallen!” It is the time of Babylon’s fall, the time when God is repaying Babylon for daring to come against the corporate church. You see, in order for judgment to begin at the house of God, God utilized Satan and his kingdom, which is pictured in a historical parable through the king of Babylon and the nation of Babylon that came against Judah. They destroyed Jerusalem and took many Jews captive, and they took their riches away, and so forth. And now at the end, it is the repayment.

So, again, God says here in Jeremiah 25:29-30:

For, lo, I begin to bring evil on the city which is called by my name, and should ye be utterly unpunished? Ye shall not be unpunished: for I will call for a sword upon all the inhabitants of the earth, saith JEHVOAH of hosts. Therefore prophesy thou against them all these words, and say unto them, JEHOVAH shall roar from on high, and utter his voice from his holy habitation; he shall mightily roar upon his habitation; he shall give a shout, as they that tread the grapes, against all the inhabitants of the earth.

It is against all the inhabitants of the earth. Now let us turn to Revelation 8, a chapter where the Lord repeatedly describes the judgment on the “third part.” We will not read too much of it, but He refers to the “third part” of this or the “third part” of that, and that is because the “third part” identifies with the people of God, and the people of God identify with the corporate church. So in judging the “third part,” God is indicating that this is the judgment on the churches and congregations. And it is the first four trumpets that pronounce the judgment on the “third part” in Revelation 8. I will read Revelation 8:12-13:

And the fourth angel sounded, and the third part of the sun was smitten, and the third part of the moon, and the third part of the stars; so as the third part of them was darkened, and the day shone not for a third part of it, and the night likewise. And I beheld, and heard an angel flying through the midst of heaven, saying with a loud voice, Woe, woe, woe, to the inhabiters of the earth by reason of the other voices of the trumpet of the three angels, which are yet to sound!

The three woes are pronounced upon the inhabiters of the earth, after judgment had begun on the house of God, the “third part,” the corporate church, and then it transitioned to judgment on all the inhabitants of the earth, just as in Jeremiah 25. Jeremiah was to cause all the nations to drink, starting with Jerusalem and Judah. That started the process, followed by all the rest of the people of the world. And, here, it is the “third part,” and one of the reasons that God says the “third part” of the stars was darkened is because the light of the Gospel was put out in a certain location, the churches and congregations. And that is important to distinguish because later the light of the Gospel would be put out in all the world: “Immediately after the tribulation, the sun is darkened,” as it says in Matthew 24. It does not say the “third part of the sun” because it applies to the whole world. So God first described judgment on the third part and the light of the Gospel being put out in the churches. The Holy Spirit had left the churches, and Satan entered in, and there is no more salvation there.

Then there follows the “three woes,” and in Revelation 9 the fifth angel sounds, and the smoke of the pit rises up and darkens the sun. Let us read that in Revelation 9, remembering that the fifth, sixth and seventh trumpets are the same as the “three woes.” It says in Revelation 9:1-2:

And the fifth angel sounded, and I saw a star fall from heaven unto the earth: and to him was given the key of the bottomless pit. And he opened the bottomless pit; and there arose a smoke out of the pit, as the smoke of a great furnace; and the sun and the air were darkened by reason of the smoke of the pit.

Again, God had just said in chapter 8 that the third part of the sun was smitten in the previous chapter, so why refer to it again? It is because that was referring exclusively to the churches, but now it is referring to the inhabiters of the earth, so this is the whole world. And the smoke has darkened the sun, and if the sun is darkened, no light is shining upon the earth, and the world has been turned into “hell” in smoke and darkness. It is the language of the pit, and the nations have been turned into hell. And that took place, spiritually, on May 21, 2011, and that condition is continuing, and we are seeing the effects on a day by day basis in the blindness of men. When the light of the Gospel goes out and God lifts His restraining hand off the hearts of men, then they walk in blindness. They walk in darkness, and it is no wonder that we are not only hearing more about gay marriage, but many people do not understand what gender they are, and they think there are unlimited options to gender. Confusion is overcoming the minds of men as they are showing forth the darkened condition of the whole earth, as we are presently living in the Day of Judgment.