³ But do you suppose this, O man, when you pass judgment on those who practice such things and do the same yourself, that you will escape the judgment of God?

“Nope, won’t happen to me.” That is the folly of sin, the belief that somehow judgment will pass me by. God has been warning people ever since the beginning: “… from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die” (Gen 2:17). Yet human insolence leads us to disregard God’s gracious warnings and then suffer the consequences. The writer of Hebrews comments on learning from Old Testament history:

For this reason we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away from it. For if the word spoken through angels proved unalterable, and every transgression and disobedience received a just penalty, how will we escape if we neglect so great a salvation? After it was at the first spoken through the Lord, it was confirmed to us by those who heard… (Heb 2:1–3).

This is the classic case of learning from other people’s stories:

See to it that you do not refuse Him who is speaking. For if those did not escape when they refused him who warned them on earth, much less will we escape who turn away from Him who warns from heaven … (Heb 12:25).

There is no point in continuing on in the book of Romans if someone is foolish enough to think he can escape God’s all-knowing judgment:

The Lord looks from heaven; He sees all the sons of men; from His dwelling place He looks out on all the inhabitants of the earth, He who fashions the hearts of them all, He who understands all their works. (Ps 33:13–15).

No amount of moralizing or pontificating, setting ourselves up as the supreme judge of right and wrong, will in any way help our cause before God, the perfectly holy and righteous One. To think otherwise is part of what it means that our foolish hearts are darkened (see 1:21). The moralizer is just as guilty as the person of rank sin of the worst kind. Today, as people reject God in our culture, their feeble attempts to define morality prove hopelessly self-serving. All the while, God’s judgment descends both now and for eternity.

Lord, thank You for the gracious warnings so I can escape judgment.