Benefits and Drawbacks, Part 10

And turn to the book of Romans,
we find ourselves again in chapter three, Romans chapter three. We have been these many weeks
in Romans chapter two. Is wrapping up his argument and
you know it essentially that he is indicting the Jews much
as he much like he had already indicted the Gentiles in chapter
one. The Jews are shown to be likewise
condemned. And carrying down through verse
twenty nine of chapter two, Paul has laid out not only the privileges
and the arrogance of the nation of Israel, but their oversight
of those same privileges and the judgment that that wrought
in verses five through twenty nine. Continuing on in essentially
the dialogue that was begun in chapter one, verse two, if you
go back there, you’ll see what I mean. When Paul directly looks,
it’s as if he is talking to perhaps a Jewish audience live, because
there is some interplay here. There are even questions and
answers. Look back at verse one of chapter two, where Paul says,
therefore, you have no excuse, every one of you. And you can
almost even see him pointing his finger around the room. The
dialogue continues when he says in verse two, and we know that
the judgment of God rightly falls upon those who practice such
things. But do you suppose this? Oh,
man. And he queries those who are
almost in his presence. The dialogue continues in verse
four, do you think lightly of the riches? of his kindness and tolerance
and patience. The dialogue continues down in
verse 17. 17 through 24 is a back and forth
dialogue again, and it culminates in chapter 3, where there is
this Q&A, as it were, where Paul is proposing these supposed arguments. They’re not actually in front
of him, but he’s talking to them as if he were. Well, the dialogue
continues even through verse 20, and it’s that passage that
we come to this morning, chapter three, verses nine through 20,
where Paul has already looked around the room and indicted
the Jews. He had already indicted the Gentiles,
and it’s as if he says, well, who else is there? Because Gentile
is a very broad term, speaking of anyone who is a non-Jew. When he indicts the Jews and
the Gentiles, he is finished. He has indicted all. Now, the
first two chapters, As we saw, Paul had roundly indicted both
Gentiles and Jews. The Gentiles were shown to be
idolatrous sinners in need of God’s saving grace. And likewise,
the Jews, despite their choice by God and the countless privileges
that flowed from that special relationship to God, they too
were judged to be sinners in need of that same saving grace
of God. Paul here, as it were, looks
around. Gentiles are sinners. Jews are
sinners. Who else is there? All the world,
all humanity is utterly sinful, devoid of righteousness and desperately
in need of God to mercifully save them. Look at verse nine. What then? Are we better than
they? Not at all. For we have already
charged that both Jews and Greeks are all under sin, as it is written. There is none righteous, not
even one. There is none who understands. There is none who seeks after
God. All have turned aside. Together
they have become useless. There is none who does good.
There is not even one. Their throat is an open grave.
With their tongues they keep deceiving. The poison of asps
is under their lips, whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness.
Their feet are swift to shed blood. Destruction and misery
are in their paths, and the path of peace they have not known.
There is no fear of God before their eyes. Now, we know that
whatever the law says, it speaks to those who are under the law
that every mouth may be closed and all the world may become
accountable to God. Because by the works of the law,
no flesh will be justified in his sight, for through the law
comes the knowledge of sin. Paul begins his ongoing dialogue
here in verse nine with a few simple questions. What then?
It’s a conclusion that he’s drawing. He’s coming to the end of his
treatment of this subject of sin. Remember, we began back
in chapter one with the subject of sin, and that compasses all
the way down through chapter three, verse 20. The subject
of sin essentially draws to a close, but it opens to the grand subject
of salvation. Paul says, what then? Let’s wrap
up this dialogue. What do we conclude, then, from
all that we’ve heard? The Jews are under sin, likewise
the Gentiles. And he asks a second and follow
up question. Are we better than they? In essence,
it is a summary thought. It’s even a repeated thought.
Paul has made it clear that the Jews were likewise in sin, even
in spite of their privileges. But here again, Paul uses the
rhetorical device to perpetuate this dialogue, this back and
forth and the running question. To do so, he puts himself in
with his countrymen and pointedly and dramatically asks, are we
better than the Gentiles? We have all these privileges.
And he had already drawn the conclusion that, no, they were
not better off, even though the privileges were legitimate. Are
we better than they? The word translated here is better
has a basic meaning to hold before, to have before another, even
in times translated to excel, and thus the idea of being better
off than another. The Jews were privileged above
all other nations. Were they better off? As one
said, although he has admitted that the advantages of the Jews
over the Gentiles is indeed great, it must not be concluded that
the Jews are better off than them. It has been shown that
while they had an exceptional privilege, their use of this
privilege brought them under judgment. The privilege itself
might appear even to be a penalty, the greater call only in occasion
for greater condemnation. See, Paul had pointed out that
these benefits were indeed legitimate. Just as in the parable of the
sower, there wasn’t anything wrong with the seed. There wasn’t
anything wrong with the great privileges that God had bestowed
upon the nation of Israel. They were legitimate. They were
substantial. They were real and they should
have produced a real difference. And they didn’t. But there wasn’t
anything wrong with them. One commentator paraphrased this
little section when he said, well, then you have said that
it’s an advantage to belong to the Jewish nation. Does it follow
that we are superior to those Gentiles who do not have the
privileges that we have? I think that’s an accurate paraphrase. Privileges or no privileges,
Paul says, doesn’t matter. You abuse the privileges, you
fail to appropriate them as you should have, and they stand in
essence as no privilege at all. Jews and Gentiles stand equally
in need of God’s saving grace. And that’s exactly what Paul
answers just following. He says, not at all. Are you
better than them? No, not at all. Are we better
than the Gentiles? Not at all. For we have already
charged that both Jews and Greeks are all under sin. And here is
where he begins to glide into the universality of sinfulness. It’s one thing to say that the
Gentiles are sinful. It’s another to say that the
Jews are sinful. And now what he does is essentially
glue those two groups together and state the obvious conclusion
that all mankind is under sin. The answer basically touches
upon the the root of the matter, but it doesn’t even go all the
way to it. He’ll ultimately get to those subjects in chapters
seven and eight, chapters nine and ten. But he touches upon
it here just briefly because of the argument at hand. All
have sinned. All are equally condemned and
all are desperately in need of God’s saving grace. Remember,
we’re on a walk through the forest. We don’t want to get lost. I
want you to know that Gentiles are all under sin. I want you
to know that the Jews likewise are under sin. But we can’t lose
sight of Paul’s purpose here. Paul’s purpose is to sew up the
world all under sin so that he can introduce all to the glorious
grace of the Gospel that opens in chapter 3. The whole discussion
that he has been conducting approaches this conclusion that These Jews,
this Jewish nation so privileged, had no advantage, really, over
the Gentiles, because they are all under sin. Literally, this
means a subjection to sin. It’s being under the weight of
something and desperately in need of deliverance. You can’t
do anything by yourself. The whole point of these chapters
is to show the universal need of the gospel. frequently treats sin in this
regard. It’s a power that gets a hold
of man and puts it under its complete authority and power.
And such is the case with any who do not know Christ. They
are under sin’s complete power. It is a controlling element.
This is what he says in Galatians 3.22. The Scripture has shut
up everyone under sin. They’re all, as it were, locked
in a room, locked in a cage. But it’s beyond that. They are
under the mighty weight of sin and they can do nothing so that
the promises by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those
who believe. There is hope. And Paul will
get there, but not until he makes the point. Not until he drives
home the point that not only the Gentiles, not only the Jews,
but all are understand to be under sin is to be. Controlled by its power to be
referred to as utter sinners. As one pastor said, it is not
simply to be beneath. But to be totally under the power
of the authority and the control of something or someone, all
are completely subservient and in bondage to the dominion of
sin. Now, if there were no hope, if
there were no help, that is bad, bad news. We might as well just
run back into the forest, but there is hope, people, and we’re
right there. The forest is clearing. The grace
of God is standing before us and we all all we have to do
is walk forward in the next few weeks and the glorious gospel
of the Lord Jesus Christ is open to us. Now, most of us know it
already, but in case you’re sitting here and in case you’ve been
listening for the last eight, 10, 15, whatever weeks it’s been.
And you’re hearing that the Gentiles are under sin. And the Jews are
under sin. And you don’t even know what
your heritage is. I’m telling you, there’s hope. There’s hope for sinners. One excellent commentator said
it this way, if a person ever becomes right before God, it
is never because he is innately better something in himself,
some heritage, some family tree issue, some faithful upbringing. It’s never because he’s inherently
better than anyone else or because he has managed to bring his life
up to God’s standards or because he zealously observes certain
religious practices. It is only because he has acknowledged
his sin and his helplessness and has laid himself in humble
faith before the Lord Jesus Christ. That’s our hope. Now, most of
you know that Paul won’t get to it today and neither will
I. But in the weeks to come, the
gospel is open so gloriously that I plead with you to come.
I plead with you to hear the good news as well as the difficult
news. Paul opens now. In these verses,
chapter three, verses 10 through 18 to one of the most unique
and powerful sections in all of the Bible. Because what he
does is gather in from six different sources, these passages and essentially
molded into a new verse. Look at the form of it and regarding
the form, there was all kinds of different ideas of how it
breaks out and how it’s arranged. One person said it this way,
it’s arranged in three strokes, three groups, the first in 10
through 12, the second and 13 through 14 and a third consisting
each two sets of two lines. Well, that’s fine. Another said these passages are
often of two different classes, one descriptive of the general
character of men, the other referring to particular sinful acts. That’s
fine. Another said it this way, and
this was the usual breakout, 10 through 12, 13 through 14,
15 through 17. What you have here, let’s simplify it. And you know what I mean when
I say simplify, let’s make it just really difficult. Basically,
what you have in Romans 3, 10 through 18 is six Old Testament
citations, six different passages. But from those passages, they
produce a total of 14 different statements of indictment on all
mankind, 14 different statements. I told you I’d make it simple. Regarding the beauty of these
verses, and I’ll quote only one of them, one pastor said, the
gathering of these quotations has been constructed with considerable
care and artistry. It might as well be because it
was the Holy Spirit that did it right. I mean, it’s gracious
to point those things out. Considerable care and artistry
so as to form a real new unity out of a multiplicity of excerpts.
In other words, these passages become a new, fresh passage,
an indictment on all mankind. What’s the purpose? The purpose
of these questions is to justify essentially what Paul had already
said to bring argumentation from Scripture to Buffett, what he
had already alleged. The general sinfulness of man,
the sinfulness of humanity pointed out in general terms now is made
explicit by way of proof from the Old Testament. What Paul
does is hold out that every person, without any exception, is under
sin as cited. What he will do is essentially
indict all mankind here. And if it weren’t for the grace
of God, even believers might begin to squirm and to pale. But those of us who do know the
grace of God can look at these things and can affirm that not
only were they true in our lives, but sometimes still show their
faces in our grace-touched lives. Such is the nature of sin. Such
is the nature of sinfulness. Paul said no one escapes. No
one. Look at verse 9. What then, are
we better than they? Not at all, for we have already
charged that both Jews and Greeks are all under sin, as it is written,
and any Jew would sit forward in his seat at those words. As
it is written, bears with it the authority of God. These are
God’s words. This is God’s indictment. As it is written, there is none
righteous, not even one. There is none who understands.
There is none who seeks for God. All have turned aside together.
They have become useless. There is none who does good.
There is not even one. In verses 10 through 12, we have
our first citation. Citation is from Psalm 14, one
through three, which produces our first six indictments. First
of which. is that there is none righteous,
not even one. What Paul points to convey here
is the idea, the thought that the righteous standing, the idea
of standing before God in good enough conditions, spiritually
speaking, is absolutely ludicrous. There are none. Though they work
their entire lives, they’re born tainted with sin and the taint
becomes an utter blight upon them. They’re born just good
enough to go to hell. And their life only gets worse. As one said, the question which
is discussing is whether men are righteous or can be justified
on the ground of their own righteousness in the sight of God. Can I be
good enough? Can I get good enough? Paul says
there isn’t anybody. Outside, obviously, of the Lord
Jesus Christ, there is no one who is righteous. What he does
here is declare the universal, the absolute sinfulness of all
humanity. No one has a kind of righteousness
that can meet the demands of God’s holy law. No one can rise
to that level of perfection. As one shepherd said, the apostle
isn’t speaking of specific acts or general patterns of behavior,
but of man’s inner character. He’s not saying that we can’t
go out and do some righteous deed, some good thing. But he’s
saying that totality of our lives can never match up with God’s
standard. There is not a single person
who has ever lived other than Jesus Christ, whose innermost
being could be characterized as righteous by God’s standard. The second indictment. The second
indictment is there is none who understands. Well, theoretically,
at least. You could say that if you explain
to them about what righteousness is, and how we are born in sin,
and how we are inherently unrighteous, and what God’s standard is, and
how difficult it is, impossible it is, to live up to that standard. Theoretically, at least, someone
could comprehend that. How then is it said that there
is none who understands? What it’s talking about here
is religious and moral understanding, a complete understanding of the
way God works. And essentially what Paul says
to the Ephesians regarding the Gentiles is here said to be true
of all people, all men, Jews and Gentiles. In Ephesians 4,
18, he says they are darkened in their understanding, excluded
from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them,
because of the hardness. of their heart. They don’t even want to understand.
They love their ignorance. They wallow in their ignorance.
They hate God, remember? They don’t want God on His terms. And the only way to comfort their
sin-sickened soul is to be ignorant and to remain ignorant. The word Paul uses here He often
uses to simply express a correct and appropriate, a right apprehension,
a right understanding of divine truth. And he says that, generally
speaking, people don’t have it. They don’t have it outside of
Christ. One pastor said, even if men
somehow had the ability to achieve God’s perfect righteousness,
they wouldn’t know what it is or how to go about attaining
it. They don’t know the right way. They don’t know how to approach
God. Israel had the blueprint. And
they couldn’t do it. Man has no innate ability to
fully comprehend God’s truth or his standard of righteousness,
no spiritual capacity to know or understand. They are without
understanding. They have no ability to grip
and to grasp, mentally speaking. They have no ability to lay hold
of spiritual, real, true spiritual discernment of divine things. And even if they did, They have
no way to grope about in the dark and to find their way and
to come out the other end with the right kind of love for God,
the right kind of lifestyle, the right behavior, the right
kind of obedience. One Puritan said, all men are
naturally ignorant of God, and by neglecting the one thing,
they leave themselves devoid of God’s grace. Not only that, there’s a third
indictment. All there is none who pardon
me. There is none righteous. There
is none who understand. There is none. There isn’t anybody
who seeks for God. Now, you say now right here,
Pastor, I got you. Because I’ve I’ve memorized a
couple of those verses in Scripture about seeking God. Really, are
you really going to say that? No one seeks for God, because
I sought for God. I went to Bible camp. I began
to look for God. I began to seek out spiritual
things and I found Him. No, you didn’t. He found you. We’re commanded throughout the
Old Testament to seek God. We’re commanded. The Jews were
commanded to seek God. Listen to a few. I have an entire
page, you know. I have an entire page of these,
but listen, I’ll do just a few. Exodus thirty three seven. Moses
used to take the tent pitch outside the camp a good distance from
the camp, and he called in at the tent of meeting and everyone
who sought the Lord see right there. They’re seeking the Lord.
Deuteronomy 4, 29. From there you will seek the
Lord your God. You will find him if you search
for him with all your heart, with all your soul. And that’s
one of the first verses we memorize. 1 Chronicles 28, 9. As for you, my son Solomon, know
the God of your father. Serve him with a whole heart
and a willing mind, for the Lord searches all hearts and understands
every intent of the thoughts. If you seek him, he will let you find him. But
if you forsaken, he will reject you forever. See, people do seek
the Lord. Or do they? Second Chronicles
15, they entered into the covenant to seek the Lord God of their
fathers with all their heart and soul. See, they did seek
the Lord. Pastor, Ezra 8.22, For I was
ashamed to request of the king troops and horsemen to protect
us from the enemy on the way, because we had said to the king,
the hand of our God is favorably disposed to all who seek him,
but his power and his anger against all those who forsake him. In
case you memorized a different version of these, Psalm 9.10,
Psalm 24.6, Psalm 27.8, Proverbs 28.5, Evil men do not understand justice,
but those who seek the Lord understand all things. Isaiah 9.13, Isaiah
31.1, Isaiah 51.1, Isaiah 55.6, Jeremiah 29.13. You will seek
me and find me when you search for me with all your heart. And
the kid who goes to camp, And he just doesn’t seem to much
understand we indict him because he’s not seeking, because he’s
not doing it with all his heart. Because if he would, he’d find
God. There’s no doubt about it. I
mean, I just read him. How am I going to argue with
you? There’s no doubt about it. God tells us to seek Him. He even tells us that if we seek
Him, Theoretically, we would find it. But God knows all. God knows the sinfulness of man.
God knows that our inclination is not to seek him. God knows
what we’re going to do with our lives. God knows that our inclination
is not going to be heart, soul, mind and strength dedicated to
the Lord God. That’s why ultimately God needs
to draw us to himself. Robert Haldane, the great pastor
of another day, I would call a Puritan born too late, said
it this way. The command to seek God supposes
the need that all men have to go out of themselves and to seek
elsewhere their support, their life, their happiness, and as
well presupposes the distance at which we naturally are from
God. We have to seek God because he’s not that near to us for
good cause. Not only because we are far from
God or God is far from us, but we by our perversity and he by
his just wrath. It teaches how great is the blindness
of those who seek anything else but God in order to be happy.
Since true wisdom consists in seeking God for this, He alone
is the sovereign good to man, there’s only one place to go,
right? It also teaches us that during
the whole course of our entire life, God proposes Himself as
the object that men are to seek. And if they do not find Him,
It is due to their own perversity, which causes them to flee from
him or to seek him in a wrong way. And that is exactly the
summary of Romans chapter one and two. The wrong way was the
way that the Gentiles had sought through idolatry to seek God
allegedly, and the Gentiles essentially missed the mark entirely as for
the Jews. They turned things around as
well. They didn’t like what God had planned, and so they laid
out a new course. They didn’t seek God, neither
did one of them. There is none righteous. There
is none who understands. There is none who seeks God.
But there’s a fourth indictment. All have turned aside. All have
turned aside. You know, that word was used
of AWOL soldiers. One who is out of the way, one
who is out of his marching ranks. What it points to is those who
are so blinded by their own sin, so blinded to God’s grace and
goodness, God’s truth, that essentially they turn and follow their own
path and their own desires. Rather than following hard after
God. Sin, said one, is a wandering,
a departure from the right way, the way of duty and obligation.
Away from the way of which which leads to happiness. Ultimately. A person, as one pastor said,
who is naturally evil, if we’re born in sin, We’re naturally
ignorant of God’s truth. We’re naturally rebellious, rebellious
against God. Inevitably, we will naturally
live apart from God’s will. It’s just going essentially. The natural way. Fifth, there’s a fifth indictment
together, they have become useless. I mean, if the other if the other
indictments didn’t make you sad, this one does. God made us for
a purpose. To please and glorify and enjoy
Him. God made us for a specific purpose. God wants something of us. He
wants to use us and enjoy us. But because of our sinfulness,
because of the waywardness of humanity, because of their sinfulness
and their lack of righteousness, because they don’t pursue God
and don’t seek Him, Because they turned aside, they become useless. It’s a sad thought. They’ve lost. They become good for nothing. As one said, they had become
unfit for that for which God made them. What a sad thing. What a sad thing for God. He
made them for a specific purpose. He designed them perfectly. And
they have become useless, unprofitable to God, unprofitable to themselves,
unprofitable to their neighbor. You know what this is an echo
of? Second Timothy, chapter two, Paul said it this way. In a large
house, there are not only gold and silver vessels, but also
vessels of wood and of earthenware, some to honor and some to dishonor.
You have them at your house. You have your fine china. Or
you’re somewhere or you know the best dish, right? And then
you have, you know, your Tupperware bowl. He says in any house, there’s
there’s going to be both. But the point that he’s making
comes in verse 21, therefore, if anyone cleanses himself from
these things, from this putrid, sinful life, If anyone cleanses
himself from these things, he will be a vessel for honor, sanctified,
useful for the master, prepared for every good work. You see, there are vessels of
wrath, there are vessels of destruction, there are vessels that are useless. And these sadly have lost their
usefulness to the God that had made them. Charles Hodge said men do not
understand they have no right apprehension of God. They turn
away from him. They become altogether unprofitable,
worthless, morally corrupt. The depravity is universal. And the sixth point that Paul
wants to make in this first citation, the citation of Psalm 14, one
through three. It’s so simple it almost needs
not be said at this point, but it drives home the point of the
utter depravity of the people he’s dealing with. There is none
who does good. That doesn’t sit well, does it?
Because we all look around. Well, we do good. We know lots
of people who do good, even our neighbors who don’t know Christ,
co-workers. I know lots of good people. Right? That’s their argument. A lot
of times when they get to the gates of heaven, I was a good
person. No you weren’t. You were not. You didn’t do any good. Not any
real good. Not any good from a real, genuine,
magnanimous heart that was totally sold out to serving God selflessly. It just points to, this word
does, to what’s right, what’s upright, what’s moral, what’s
good. The bottom line is that outside
of Christ we have no ability to do anything good, to commend
ourselves to God. Nothing, nothing we do can commend
ourselves, our works to God. As one said, no human being has
within himself either the desire or the capacity for the good
that is holy, perfect and God-glorifying by the divine standard. Nobody. You say, now come now. You know,
what about the Mother Teresa’s? What about all those people around
the world that just go about so selflessly? They cash in everything
they have only to do good and to serve for the good of others. What about them? Come now, Paul. Nobody. There is not even one. Other
than the Lord Jesus Christ, Paul says, search the globe, if you
will. There is not even one. One Puritan speaking of this
very subject said it this way. We distinctly affirm that spiritual
death and in consequence, eternal death is the chief and appalling
feature of the fall of man. Remember when we talked about
Genesis chapter three and the fall, there were four effects
of the fall, right? Not only inherently sinful, temporally
vexed, You’re inherently simple. That is where the sin nature
comes from. And when we march out of the garden, we march out
sinning when we begin to live. Essentially, we begin to die.
Not only are we inherently sinful, we are physically dying. We are
temporarily vexed as we walk out of the garden, everything
from leaves and heat and the pain of childbirth and the sweat
of the brow. Inherently sinful, temporally
vexed, physically dying and spiritually dead. God had told Adam when the day
you eat from that tree, you’re dead, you’re going to die. Well,
something’s wrong because either God was bluffing or he meant
something entirely different because God let Adam live another
930 some odd years. Was God bluffing at him or did
God mean something else? And what he meant was spiritual
death. There was a separation from man
and God at that moment. That was irreparable from man’s
standpoint, irreparable, and that’s exactly what he’s talking
about. We distinctly affirm that spiritual death, and in consequence
eternal death, is the chief and appalling feature of the fall
of man, and that every man born into the world is, by nature,
as impotent for any real good, as incapable of doing an acceptable
work for God, and is thoroughly dead to all truthful impressions
as a stock or a stone. He’s dead. and will ever remain
in that condition, going down to the lake beneath, unless God,
in His might, rescues him and regenerates him. Adam literally
squandered away our ability and left us without strength, and
though ten thousand hells were threatened, we are so corrupted
and ruined by the fall that we could not keep one of God’s commandments
perfectly. for a single hour. There is no
one who does good, not even one. We’ve made it only through the
first citation of indictments. Paul has six total in this section,
for a total of 14 indicting statements. When you ponder for a moment
that that was Your lot, if you, by God’s grace, have come to
know the Lord Jesus Christ as Savior, that is what he saved
you from. That was your condition when
he saved you, you didn’t come to him, you didn’t commend yourself
to him. He didn’t get a good bargain with you. He got in you
a thoroughgoing, complete sinner doing no good. He didn’t get
a life of potential either. He got a life that only God’s
grace could touch and renew and remake after his design. If you don’t know the Lord Jesus
Christ. This is where you are. If you
don’t know the Lord Jesus Christ that came and paid our penalty
on the cross to remedy this desperate situation. It’s there for you. And all it takes is faith. Place
your faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. And this big problem
is immediately remedied. God saves you from yourself. Would you pray with me? Our merciful
God, we thank you and praise you. That even in the face of
what looks like an impossible, a desperate, a hopeless situation,
We know of a truth because we have placed our faith in Christ
and in him alone. We know that there’s hope. Paul
will get there and we will rejoice that day, but for now. It is enough for us to testify
and proclaim with our hearts. That there is hope for sinners
such as ourselves. For all of us who were saved
out of this desperate condition, we have but to humble ourselves
all over again in gratitude for what you have done. Lord God,
we thank you for saving us. And if there are any who do not
know the Lord Jesus Christ. Salvation is there. Salvation
from ourselves and from our desperately simple condition. Grant grace, Father. We thank
you and praise you in Jesus name. Amen. so so