Take your Bibles and turn with
me to Romans chapter 3. Romans chapter 3. The text will be found in verses
9 through verse 20. I entitled this message, A Most
Despised Doctrine. A Most Despised Doctrine. It's sad that this is a despised
doctrine because it is the truth of God and without this foundation,
if you miss this point concerning the depravity of man, and that's
what he's going to be talking about, the depravity of man,
if you miss this point, or you are somehow skewed from this
point of doctrine, then all your doctrine will be wrong. One man said this, if you're
wrong on the fall, you're wrong on it all. And that's just true. And this is why the Apostle,
I'm telling you, why the Apostle has spent almost three chapters
developing this truth. because it is an essential truth.
And as one believer, and I want you to understand this, you as
believers, when I tell you these things, you know this about yourself.
I'm not telling you anything new about yourself, but I'm telling
you as you grow in grace and knowledge of Jesus Christ, this
truth, there's much more to it than you think. It is deeper
than you think. However depraved you think man
is, it's much worse. And this is, God teaches us,
as we grow in grace, we learn more of our own depravity. But this is good because the
more we learn of this, the more excellent the sacrifice of Christ
becomes. It is gloriously displayed. I think of, I look out the window
every morning and when the storm clouds are in the background,
the trees and the grass never look greener. Looks beautiful. Doesn't even get the dark backdrop. Everything is so much more green.
Well, it's the same color green as it was during the sunlight,
but it just magnifies it. This is true of the depravity
of man. It magnifies our need of Christ. It magnifies our need and the
glory of His offering. So let's see this together. Paul
says, what then? Are we better than they? No,
in no wise. For we have proved, both Jews
and Gentiles, that they are all under sin." Now again, the apostle
has laid the foundation of this truth concerning God's justice,
that God is no respecter of persons. The Gentiles were sinners and
they disobeyed the law of conscience and nature. The Jews are sinners
in that they disobeyed the law of Moses. And so Paul In verses 1 through 8 of chapter
3, that's chapter 1 and chapter 2, he proves the guilt of Jew
and Gentile. Then he deals with these objections,
and that's what we've been dealing with for the last couple of weeks,
the objections of men. If God is going to judge the
Jew just like he does the Gentile, what's the advantage of the Jew?
Now, I want you to understand their motive for asking that
question. They wanted to discredit the Apostle. You're telling me
the Jew don't have any advantage. What were they saying? They're
saying, you're denying the word of God. Because the word of God
tells us that the Jew had an advantage. And so what does Paul
say? Yeah, they had an advantage. It was only temporal. It was
only physical. And the greatest advantage they
had was they had the gospel. But the problem was they didn't
believe it. They didn't believe it. They couldn't believe it.
And then they say, well, since the Jews didn't believe it, is
God unfaithful? God promised to save the Jews and they're
not saved? Are you telling me God's word is unfaithful? No,
because the Jews are one spiritually and not one physically. He answers
that question. And the next objection was in
verses 5 through 8, well, if God chose spiritual Israel and
left the rest to themselves, left the rest of man, rejected
the rest, how can God be just to punish them? If God determined
their rejection and then determined the sins that they would do,
and listen, that's true. We're not denying that. God has
rejected many. And God has purposed their sins
in that it would fulfill His will. You can't deny that. Scripture
tells you that. Is God unjust? What does Paul
say? How dare you put God under your
judgment? That's foolishness, isn't it?
Because our judgment is very unjust. We're unjust all the
time. We excuse sin all the time, don't
you? And yet you're going to take God and put him under your
microscope? No. And the apostle said, God forbid.
Now, the last objection didn't deal with this, so I want you
to see this. This last objection deals with
man's hatred of this gospel of God's grace. Look what he says
in verse 8. He says, and not rather, as we
are slanderously reported, and some affirm that we say, let
us do evil that good may come. This is what men said of Paul.
They said, well, if you believe in salvation by grace and not
by the law, then you mean to say, well, let us sin that grace
may abound. Now listen, we're going to deal
with this in greater detail. I don't have time today. But
Romans chapter 6 deals with this very thing. He says, is that
what we say? No, we are slanderously reported
to say that. We who believe that we are not
under the law in any measure, that's the argument they use
against us. Well, you're lawless. We're not
lawless. Our law is not the law of Moses,
but we're not lawless. We have the law of faith and
love, and it is the love of Christ that constrains us. You that
are constrained by the law, how's that working out for you? The law can't help you. It can
only tell you what you've done wrong. It can't help you. What
does help me is the love of Christ. The love of Christ constrains
me. Oh, not like I want. I desire to be without sin. But
yet we know this. It is the love of Christ. And
I want to point out this fact. Historically, it's true. Those
congregations and churches who are under the law It doesn't
produce morality. It only inflames immorality. Isn't this true of some of the
most strictest sects in the so-called Christian religion? The strictest
of sects are the ones that have now flipped the lid. Man, they've
got homosexuals in the pool pit. They've got women preaching. I mean, there's a whole bunch
of things. Where'd they begin, though? They began being very
strict. We gotta wear this, gotta wear this kind of makeup, don't
wear makeup, don't do this, and what? Then they flip and they're
just, why? Because the law only genders
sin, it doesn't help to contain it. And we'll deal with this
more in Romans 6. Again, I wanted to touch on it
to let you know. But now, in verse 9, the apostle
begins the second part of this chapter. There are three parts.
This is the second part. The first part was the objections.
This is the second part. It is this truth. Listen to this
very carefully. All under sin. That's the main
clause in this. He said, are we better, is the
Jews better because they had the gospel? No. No way. Why? Because I've already proved
it. He is going to tell you everything
that I said in the first two chapters. This is the conclusion. Here it is, all under sin. All under sin. What does that mean, all under
sin? In the context, he's speaking
of guilt. You can't miss this. He's talking about the justice
and judgment of God. He's talking about our disobedience
to either the law of nature and conscience or the law of Moses.
He's talking about guilt. For the last two chapters, he's
been talking about guilt. This is what it means. All are
under the guilt of sin. Which is the direct opposite
of being under grace. Being under grace means what?
We are free from guilt. This is the glory of the gospel,
is that Christ bore our guilt. And because the guilt has been
settled, paid, the justice of God by no means can come back
upon us. This is the glory of it, being
under grace. But you were under grace, this
is the first principle you understood, is that you were first under
sin. And so I want you to see this
is the context. And when he says this, there's
none righteous. No, not one. There's none understand. We understand
this, that we are under grace are made the righteousness of
God in Christ. What he's talking about is our
nature. He's talking about what we are by nature in this text. This is the same word he uses
in Galatians, the same idea used in Galatians 3 22. The scripture
hath concluded. That word concluded, shut up. That's what it's done. It shuts
you up to this truth. All under sin. Same thing he's
saying here. Galatians 3.22 is exactly what
he's saying here. All under the guilt of sin. This is the conclusion. that
all the sons of Adam's race are guilty of sin and none can justify
themselves before the justice of God. So let this truth, this
conclusion be heard because it is true of every one of us. Regardless of who you are. This
is Paul's point that some people trying to elevate themselves.
Well, I was born in a Christian family. I was born hearing the
gospel. I was born, I made this, I did
this. What are you trying to do? You're
trying to set yourselves above the other heathens around you.
The problem is you're one of them. This is what he's saying, that
you all, we all, Paul himself included, all are under sin by
nature. By nature. This is why the scripture makes
this very clear. We're born sinners. Sinner is
not what you became. See that little baby that comes
out and you say, oh, how innocent. He's not innocent. He's not innocent. Well, that's just me. All under
sin. Isn't this what David said? That
the wicked are estranged from the womb, speaking what? Lies. Before, can a baby talk? I mean,
he cries, he screams, but he can't even communicate. And God
said he's a liar. He's a liar from the time he
is born. Matter of fact, later on, the
prophet said, in sin did my mother conceive me. Now, his mother
was not a harlot. His mother was a married woman.
Their act in conceiving was not sin. What is he saying? He's
saying, I was conceived by very nature from two sinners. Really,
his father, that's who transmits this disease of sin is the father.
And we transmit it to our sons. We're born guilty. That's the
problem. Religion don't like that. Men
despise this. They despise this truth. Now
why is this so important? Why am I stressing this so much?
Why is the apostle, why does he spend three chapters doing
it? Can't we just say this at the beginning, all under sin,
and move on? He didn't do that, did he? Why labor the point? Because of this, all false religion,
all false views of the person and offering of Christ have their
foundation and root in not understanding this doctrine, in denying it,
denying it. All false religion deny the total
and absolute depravity of man, every one of them do. All false religion begins by
believing that man has some fundamental goodness in him. They believe that there's something
remaining that by either manipulation of circumstance or emotion or
that there's something that we can do to get to it to make him
see a light. They believe that man is born
innocent and becomes sinner based on his disobedience. But the
truth is far worse. All men are born under sin. All men are born sinners and
guilty before God. Go to Romans 5 and verse 12. Paul is introducing in this section
the idea, the doctrine of representation. The truth. When I say doctrine,
I mean teaching. That's all it means. It's not
like a system of things people write down. It's just truth.
It's true doctrine. It's a teaching. This is what
scripture teaches. It looks like, wherefore, as
by one man's sin entered into the world, How in the world did
we become guilty? By one man. By one man sin entered
into the world. Satan, who is the author of sin,
the father of sin, had no power to make one man a sinner. He
couldn't make angels sinners. He couldn't do it. He represented
no one but himself. That's all he is. He was himself.
But this man, Adam, it was Adam who God made to be a representative
or what we like to call a federal head. All it means, representative. He represented you, and you,
and you, and you, and you, every one of us. Every one of us were
represented by Adam. So it was that by this one man,
Adam, that sin entered in the world. When God said, in the
day thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die, God gave him
one law, one law. Don't eat this fruit. Simple,
right? Any complexities. There's no
nuances here. Everything else is yours. This belongs to me. Don't eat
it. What's the first thing Eve did
is probably what she heard from her husband. I don't even want
to blame her for it. She said, in the day we eat it or touch
it. God didn't say nothing about touching. And you know what,
he didn't even command Eve not to eat it. It was Adam. She represented no one. And so when he ate, notice this,
when Eve ate, what happened? Nothing. Nothing changed. They
didn't know they were naked. They didn't know they sinned.
They felt no guilt. They felt no sorrows. Eve felt
no shame. Nothing. She was deceived, but
she didn't. Nothing happened. Everybody thinks
that Eve all of a sudden became this seductress, that she was
wicked and vile after she had eaten. No, that's not true. Adam. In the day he ate, it says
this, both their eyes were open. Why? Why does that? Because he
represented her. And when he ate, divine judgment
fell and Adam died. Adam died. He died spiritually. It took him 900 and something
years to die physically. But in that moment, he died spiritually. And that's the case. Death, so
what does it say? What's the result? Look at 12
again, 512. So death passed. Upon who? All men. Why? That doesn't seem fair. For all have sinned. Now, whether
men rail against this or they don't, It don't matter to me. I'm not going to make you see
it. I'm not going to make you understand it. I'm just here
to declare it. That's all I'm going to do. I'm
going to declare it. Listen to me. All under sin. All under
sin. The truth remains, whether you
like it or you don't. Patton, he said, man, people
got to tear out pages. If they don't like stuff, they
just tear it out. Doesn't make any less true. You
can tear it out all you want to. Doesn't make any less true.
All under sin, born dead in trespasses and sin. Therefore, the conclusion
of Scripture is to shut you up to your guilt. That's what it
is. The conclusion of Scripture is
to shut you up. Now then, look back at your text.
Now we see this. This is the premise. All under
sin. Now he's going to generally describe
this, what it means. Look at verse 10, as it is written,
this should end all debate. This is why Paul writes that,
so that you just, I made a conclusion, now why am I saying it? God wrote
it. God wrote it, that should shut you up to any objection,
right? And so Paul is going to prove
this by the word of God. One man said this, if these verses
Do not fully signify the universality of man's guilt and sin before
God. No words could do it. No amount of words could ever
signify. If this doesn't do it, nothing will. That's what he's
saying. The lie of false religion will
try in vain to twist and make these words limited. Well, when
he says there's none righteous, no, not one, he's talking about
the really vile people over there. He's talking about those unbelieving
Jews. He's not talking about every, boy, and the gymnastics.
I don't want you to read any of this crap, because that's
all it is. I had to sift through it. And
it's horrible, the gymnastics that they have to go through
to disprove this to be universal. And that's what they try to do.
They'll try to tell you this is not really what it means. It sounds
like it, but that's not really what it means. It means something
limited. It's not talk about all men. Now keep in mind, Paul is not
talking about us who are under grace. What he's talking about
is this, that even those of us who are under the grace of God,
this is our nature. Yes, God makes us the righteousness
of God in Christ. That was His purpose from eternity.
But when we were born, we were just like every other man. And I'll tell you this, your
nature has not changed. Your old nature is still as vile
and corrupt as it ever was. And so notice, the Apostle will
use and tie several Old Testament scriptures together. And I don't
have the time to go and flip through every one of these scriptures.
I'm going to give you a few of them, and if you can, if you
want to take the time, go back and reference these, because
all he's doing is tying multiple scriptures together in a row
to come to this conclusion. Psalm 14 verses 2 through 4,
Psalm 58 verses 2 through 4, they're identical. Identical. And what they're saying is exactly
this. There's none righteous. There's none that do good. And
so as it is written, there's none righteous. No, not one.
There's none that understand it. There's 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. Their throat is an open sepulchre.
Their tongues have they used deceit. Poison of asp is under
their lips. Their mouth is full of cursing
and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed blood. Destruction
and misery are in their way. The way of peace they have not
known. There is no fear of God in their eyes. Now we know whatsoever
things the law sayeth, to say it to them that are under the
law, that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may
become guilty before God." Notice these words. They are all. They are all. All
together. Every one. All the world. You
get the sense? Then these words are combined
with negative phrases. Negative phrases. There is none. There is none.
There is none. Four times he says that. You
get the picture? If these words don't make it
universal, nothing will. No, not one. No, not one. You
cannot see that there is no other place in scripture that expresses
universality of our guilt better than this one. And what we all have in common
is this, being under sin, notice the first thing he says, he says
there's none what? Righteous. This is his whole
premise is to preach the righteousness of God by Jesus Christ, isn't
it? In order for you to believe that,
the first thing you must understand is that you have no righteousness. None righteous. And just in case
you didn't understand what none means, he said no, not one. Have you ever tried to speak
like that? You assume your audience is so ignorant that they can't
understand the word none that you have to put in no, not one.
But that's us. And I'll get to that because
there's none that understand it. So we have to do this. It's necessary. None righteous. Now seeing this
clearly that the just demands of God is what? Righteousness.
He's proved that before, didn't he? That God is no respecter
of persons, that you must be absolutely holy. Righteous. And what does the scripture conclude?
I'm going to give you these, 1 Kings 8.46, there is no man
that sinneth not. I like the way Todd put this,
you cannot not sin. You cannot not sin. It's an impossibility. There is no man that sinneth
not. And I'm going to express this
over and over again. ETH, very important. It means
that there's no man that has never not sinned before, that
is not sinning right now, and that shall ever not sin. All
men sin, and that's all they do. Why? Because that's who they
are. Sin is not what you do. It's who you are. You sin because you are a sinner. Sinning does not make you a sinner.
You are a sinner. Therefore, you sin. Proverbs
20 and verse 9, who can say I have made my heart clean? OK, that's
a good question, isn't it? Who can say that? Religion always
raised their hand. I did. Fool. Who can say I am pure from sin?
Now, believe it or not, there are people that say that. I just say, please record yourself
during the day. We'd like to see it. We'd like
to see it. Ecclesiastes 7.20 says, There
is not a just man upon the earth that doeth good and sinneth not.
So all are under sin, and there is none righteous, no, not one. Second, there is none that understandeth.
There is none that seeketh after God. The whole of humanity is
ignorant. Ignorant of what? That's pretty
smart people. You study a little science here
and science there, man, these people are pretty smart. I was talking about a spiritual
understanding. There is none that understandeth. There's none
that understood, there's none that's understanding right now,
and there's none that's going to understand. What? They don't know who God
is and they don't know what God requires. That's what they're
ignorant of. And what does Paul say about
his people, the Jewish people? He said they're ignorant of what?
The righteousness of God. Therefore, they go about to establish
their own righteousness. Is anyone here bold enough to
try to establish your own righteousness before God? Then you're ignorant. None that understand. Now, how
many understand? How many? Did you understand
this at the beginning? Did you understand by nature
this? No, you were ignorant too. Until God opened your understanding,
you had no hope of opening your own understanding. It's who you
are. And get this, there's none seeking
after God. This is the premise of all freewill religion, is
that there's somebody out there seeking God. That God's got this
grace up here, And all you've got to do is seek it. Well, that
kind of destroys the whole premise. Nobody's going to be saved because
the scripture said there's none that seeketh after God. This is, again, who we are. Now,
you who believe, you said, I seek after God. Yeah, you seek after
God because God gave you a new nature. He's talking about your
old nature. If left to yourself, you would
have never sought God. It's exactly what Jesus said,
isn't it? No man can come to me. Except. That's a great word. I'm thankful for that exception.
I would have never come to God. Had he not drawn me. That's what our Lord tells us. Look at this in verse 12, they
are all gone out of the way. They are together become unprofitable. There is none that doeth good,
no not one. There is none of Adam's race
that is in the right way. Scripture says this, there is
a way that seemeth right to man. What's the way that seemeth right
to man? Works religion. Works religion always seems right
to man. It is instinctive, even in us
who are believers. We still struggle against this
wickedness in ourselves. We do. We still struggle with
it. But this is true of everyone
that is born. They are in the wrong way. What does this mean? It means that they're outside
of Christ. Because Christ said this about
himself, I am the way. You know what's true of all of
us by nature? We were not in the way. We were not in the way. We all like sheep have gone astray
and turned everyone to what? His own way. His own way. The way of every man is works
religion, feel good, positive religion, free will religion,
ritualistic religion. That's what appeals to the flesh.
I got to touch it. I got to taste it. I got to feel
it. That just seems right to them. It seemed right to me.
Why? Because we are all under sin. all our works and all our religious
efforts to please God, all our offerings for sin to satisfy
the justice of God, what does he say? They are together unprofitable. Now you got that? Take all the
prayers of all the lost men and put all the, all our prayers,
all our prayers by nature, you put them together and God says
they will not profit you. They're unprofitable. Why? Because this, there is none that
doeth good. In other words, all that you
thought was good was sin. Now this is against the nature of
man. This is why I tell you this most hated doctrine. Nobody's
good. You got that? There's none that
doeth good. Listen, in case you misunderstood
none, no, not one. And now verses 13 through 18,
Paul descends from the general and gets to the specific. He
gets to the specific here. He says, their throat is an open
sepulcher. Their tongues they have used
to see. Poison of asp is under their lips. Their throat is an
open tomb. This speaks to us concerning
the heart. Our Lord Jesus Christ tells us
this that. Out of an evil tree comes forth
evil fruit, bad tree, what do you get bad fruit? And he says,
What do you get with a corrupt heart? Every word that proceeds
from a corrupt heart is what? Corrupt. And this is what the
good deeds, the good words of men, how they really appear to
God. To us, you can get by with it.
I like good words. I like when people act good.
I mean, you can act good in front of me and I say, man, that's
great. I'm glad you're doing it. Glad you're not hitting me
or killing me or beating me. That's pretty good. I appreciate
it. That's not how God sees good
words. He sees them as a rotting corpse. It's the stench. It's a stench. I've been around some people
that have passed away. I've just never been around anybody
that's been decaying. That's what God says your words
smell like. That's what your prayers smell
like. Someone who believes himself to be self-righteous is the worst
stench in the nostrils of God. You think maybe a pedophile or
somebody vile and corrupt and doing wicked deeds, these homosexuals
out there, you think that that's the worst stench. It's not the
worst stench. The worst stench in the nostrils of God is a man
who thinks he's righteous. Listen to what God says in Isaiah
65. The self-righteous man's who he's talking about. The self-righteous
man says to others, stand by thyself and don't come near me.
I am holier than thou. Only time the word holier is
used. So if you ever hear of a doctrine that says you need
to be holier, refer to this. Only time it's used. And it's
used against self-righteous people. And notice what God says about
them. He said they are A smoke in my nose. And a fire burneth all day long. I don't know if you've ever had
that happen. You open up a barbecue grill, man, that smoke comes
up in your nose and burns your nose hairs. The smell stays in
there all day. You just can't get it out. It's
a stench. Guess what God says about your
best works? That's what he thinks about your
best, I'm sorry, best words. Words. He's talking about your
words. The poison of asp is under their lips. Deceit. All right? Who's not done this? You said
something good, but you meant something bad. That's the idea
here. Bless your heart. The southern way of saying it,
but that's true. You know, man, did you see her hat? Bless her
heart. Did you see what they, bless
their hearts. Isn't that deceit? It is deceit
and it's under all our lips, poison. The poison of false religion
is under our lips. It sounds smooth on the surface
but underneath it is really poison. Their feet are swift to shed
blood. What is this? What's the first instinct when
people hurt you? It is to hurt them back. Our feet are swift to it. You
don't even have to think about it. It's an instinct. Now you
may, the Lord may cause you to catch yourself or He may not.
But the instinct in the heart is to shed blood. To hurt them
that hurt me. This is in our hearts. Revenge. Destruction and misery are in
their way. Do you not see that humans are
the most destructive people? Self-destructive people. Self-destructive. We want what we want and we don't
care who it destroys or hurts, even ourselves. And what's the result of our
sin? We do all this destruction. We do all of these things to
get our way. And what does it breed? Misery. Misery. The way of peace they have not
known. Isn't this true of our nature?
We can't find peace. You think, well, this is going
to bring it. Our thoughts as sinful men. If I have this, I'm going to
have peace. And then when you get it, what
do you find? Misery. It's not enough. It's not sufficient. We find this. There is no peace
that can be found. Our sins never give us peace
that they promise. If I have this, I'm going to
be at peace. I'm going to be better. Everything's
going to be okay. It's an illusion. It's an illusion. And I'll tell you this, we like
our illusions. We love our illusions. Don't
mess with my illusion. Why? I'll shed your blood. My
feet are swift to shed blood and you want to destroy my illusion
of peace. False religion is the worst kind
of illusion. It says, if I can just get to
this status of sinlessness, I'm going to be okay. If I can just
make it to this, then God will be pleased with me. The problem
is you never make it. You never have enough zeal. You
never have enough works. You never have enough love. I remember somebody confronting
a Muslim about this, and they said, the guy was just asking,
when do you know you've done enough? He said, well, we've
just got to trust that we've done enough somehow. Because
they don't know enough is never enough. They killed the whole
United States, killed all millions of people in the name of their
religion. They still don't know it's enough. Same with the Baptist. First, it's just a decision.
Then it's the tithing. Then it's the commandments. Then
it's this. And then it's that. Then it's
your church attendance. Then it's this. It never ends.
Why? There's no peace. The way of
peace they have not known. What's the way of peace? You
believers, what's the way of peace? It's this, that Jesus
Christ has made my peace. Jesus Christ has made my peace
with God. Therefore, I am at what? I'm at peace. I didn't
make it. Do any sons of Adam seek to be
under the law? Now look at this. Let me make
sure I'm on the right. page here. Now why is all this necessary?
Why did the Apostle spend so much time proving this? Why is
it necessary to know the complete and total ruin of our nature?
Boy, I was having a good day until you came in here and started
telling me all this about myself. Why is it necessary? Look at
verse 19. Now we know that whatsoever things
the law sayeth, it sayeth to them that are under the law.
Anybody want to be under the law? I had my mom call, I called
my mom this morning, my niece was, she's being confronted by
somebody about tithing. And she said, do we tithe? I
said, no, not unless you want to be under the law. You know
why? Tithing is a law in the law of
Moses. They were required to tithe,
because it was one of the 613 laws that they were required
to keep. Now, if you want to be under tithing, you want to
be under the whole thing. You can't pick and choose which
one you want to obey. Can't. Anybody wants to be under the
law? What is the purpose of the law?
Anybody understand the purpose of the law? Well, look at it, look at it,
read it, tell me the purpose of the law. That every mouth
may be stopped and the whole world become guilty before God.
You wanna know the purpose of the law, that's it, the whole
reason. Abraham lived just fine without the law, didn't he? Abraham
was saved perfectly without the law, didn't have the law. That
mean Abraham was a thief and a liar and a drunk and did he
do all those evil things because he didn't have the law? The law cannot help you to be
righteous. Now suppose that you started
from this day forward and you knew all 613 commandments and
you started to do them the rest of your life. What would save
you? You've already broken it. The law can do nothing but reflect
your wicked nature. That's all it can do. It can't
help you in this matter of righteousness, of not sinning. It can't. The
law has one purpose, to shut your mouth. That's it. What's the conclusion of that?
Anybody wants to be under the law? What's the conclusion? Read
it. Therefore, by the deeds of the
law shall no flesh be justified in his sight. Why? For by the law is only the knowledge
of sin. That's all it does is just tell
you what sin is. It doesn't tell you or give you
power to obey it. My friends, it is necessary for
us to understand this. Because without understanding
this, there's no need of Christ. If you don't know that this is
talking about you, if you think this is just talking about somebody
else, yeah, you're right, preacher, it's talking about everybody
out there. You don't know Christ. Because if you don't see this
as yourself, you have no need of Jesus Christ. If you think
salvation is some cooperative effort between you and Christ,
you don't know Christ. Because it's never been revealed
to you that you are under the guilt of sin and have no way
to get out by yourself. You're not righteous. You can't
be righteous. You won't ever be righteous. You don't understand.
You'll never understand. You don't seek God. You'll never
seek God. All your works are nothing but
a vile stench in the nostrils of God. You know that? Only believers
understand that. Now, I'll tell you this. I'm
getting close. Believing this doctrine and just
consenting to it is nothing. I mean, you could read that,
and if you're really honest, if you just be honest with yourself,
you can see this. Every man can really see this
and acknowledge this. Well, that's what it says. Yeah,
that's right. You know what a believer knows? Is that I don't... I know
that everyone is depraved. What I know more is this. I'm depraved. When God comes to the sinner,
that's the first thing He convinces us of. is that there is no hope in ourselves. He brings us to a wilderness
where it is barren and dead, and we find ourselves among the
ashes of this ruined humanity. We find no goodness in ourselves,
no way to commend ourselves to God, no offering we can bring. And what do we do? God does this
and makes us to lay prostrate before Him, begging for what?
Grace. Man, if you don't give me grace,
I have no hope. If you don't show me mercy, and
you know what? If you don't show me mercy, you're
right. You're right not to show me mercy.
You have every right to condemn me. But you said, if any man come
to me, I will in no ways cast him out. How do we come? We come broken. We come ruined. And what do we
find? Oh, what do we find? We find
a righteousness that's already been made for us without our
help. We find an offering that God
not only purposed, that God not only offered, but that God accepted. An offering God accepted. Where do you find that? Who is
that righteousness? Who is that offering? Verse 21, now, the righteousness
of God without the law is manifest, witnessed by the law and prophets,
Even the righteousness of God, which is by the faith of Jesus
Christ. How is your righteousness made?
Who made your righteousness? Did you have any hand in it? Not a bit. Everything he said about me is
true. I am, I was born under sin with no hope, but this is
my hope, that Christ is all my righteousness. And how do I know he's my righteousness?
Unto all and upon all them that believe. You see, that's the
evidence that he's my righteousness. Even faith in Jesus Christ. So why is it important for us
to know depravity? And again, I keep telling you
this because you that are believers in Jesus Christ, have you found
the, have you reached the depths of your depravity yet? Have you
fully understood how depraved you are? How wicked your nature
is? I think the Lord often surprises
us and shows us, and it's a very painful thing. But yet I've also not found the
depths of his love and mercy and grace. And so to understand
his grace, I must first understand my depravity. Not just the depravity
of everybody, my own depravity. You know what this old rotten
corpse is still hanging about my neck? Oh, wretched man that
I am. Not that I was, that's religion. The believer has an experience
of this, that I am. What's my hope? My hope is He's
all my righteousness. My hope is His offering, not
my own. I can't, you know my prayers
can't even be accepted without Him. You realize that? In Romans 8 you'll get to that.
Yeah, He said except, you know, the Spirit intercede for us,
our prayers would be useless. It's wonderful, isn't it? That
we do have an intercessor. We do have a savior. We have
somebody who made us what we naturally weren't. And so what do we do? We're going
to give him all the praise and all the glory. I pray God bless it to you and
testify to this. Look into these things. Look
into these things, because the more we see our depravity, and
I know that this is a very sorrowful subject, but I tell you, the
more we see ourselves, the more glorious Christ's offering is. How great was that offering?
Well, it depends on how great a sinner you are. Remember what
Jesus said, he that is forgiven much, what? Loveth much. He is forgiving little. What
does he do? He loves little. So we delve into these things.
It makes the cross of Christ more glorious. I'm thankful for
his righteousness. I'm thankful for it, because
I didn't have him on my own. And I'm thankful for his. That's
why we come here, isn't it? That's why we want to hear it
again and again and again. I pray God will bless this. Let's
stand and be dismissed in prayer. Okay, mark this on your calendars
now. I finish right at noon. Boy, I was Speedy Gonzales, do
this thing. Let's go to God in prayer. Gracious
Father, be merciful, be merciful. I know if you're ever gonna save
a sinner, you have to first make him one. You have to expose it. And father, I'm so thankful that
you met me in the way my evil way and exposed my guilt to me. Because the next moment you expose
the righteousness of Christ to me. And you said it's done. And by faith, I believe these
that have come to you by faith. They believe what you said about
them. They know it. And it causes us to cling more
to Christ as the days go by. I pray that there be any outside
in their own way even now. Put them in the way. Show them
the way. Give them grace to see Christ
and believe. And in that there is forgiveness
of sins. pardon and peace with God. Bless us as we go our way and
I pray you bless your word in Jesus name.