The title of my message is No,
Not One, and that's taken from the Book of Romans which Ben
just read for us. We'll be visiting that passage
of course, but I want to start in Mark Chapter 7, so if you'd
like to turn with me to Mark Chapter 7. In verse 20, our Lord calls the
people together for a very important lesson. In verse 20 He said, Out of the heart of men proceed
evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness,
wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, All these evil things come from
within and defile the man. Now, Lord Jesus is responding
to an accusation of the scribes and the Pharisees, the religious
teachers of his day. And what is that accusation?
Well, let's read from verse one of chapter seven, and then we'll
look more fully at what our Lord says. Here's the accusation,
Mark. Chapter 7 verse 1, Then came
together unto him the Pharisees and certain of the scribes which
came from Jerusalem. And when they saw some of his
disciples eat with defile, that is to say with unwashed hands,
they found fault. For the Pharisees and all the
Jews, except they wash their hands oft, eat not, holding the
tradition of the elders. And when they came from the market,
except they wash, they eat not, and many other things there be
which they have received to hold, as the washing of cups and pots
and brazen vessels and of tables. Then the Pharisees and scribes
asked him, why walk not thy disciples according to the tradition of
the elders, but eat bread with unwashing hands? These religious
leaders had an accusation against the Lord Jesus and his disciples.
They found fault. We should remember that these
accusers looked on the Lord Jesus and his disciples with distaste. The Lord Jesus was a man that
ate with sinners and he associated with harlots and tax collectors. He touched lepers and he was
modest in appearance and he wasn't the Messiah they would have anticipated. A man with no evident wealth
and no fixed abode, the Lord Jesus did not fit their perception. of the coming Messiah. And added
to that, he was a Nazirite, wasn't he? You recall when Philip called
Nathanael with great excitement, he said, we've found him, we've
found him of whom Moses and the prophets spoke of, Jesus of Nazareth,
the son of Joseph. And Nathanael said, can anything
good come out of Nazareth? The idea that anything good would
come out of Nazareth was mocked. But what did Philip say? Philip
said, come and see. Come and see. And that's what
we say, don't we? We say, come and see. Just come
and see. Come and see him. These men were
looking for fault. And in their imagination, they
thought they found fault. even though the Lord Jesus had
performed multiple, countless miracles that testified to him,
testified that he was the Messiah, even though the scriptures that
these religious leaders professed to believe spoke all of him,
even though the Lord Jesus had walked perfectly all the days
of his life before them. Yet here we have these religious
men finding fault Finding fault with God. What a remarkable thing. Men have never stopped finding
fault with God. When men disagree with the gospel,
when men disagree with the word of the Lord, they are finding
fault with God. But they're not really actually
simply only finding fault with God. What they're doing is they're
accusing God, aren't they? They're accusing God of unrighteousness. They're accusing God that God
is not right. But the psalmist says in Psalm
145, the Lord is righteous in all his ways and holy in all
his works. These religious men were pretenders,
pretending to be righteous. And so in Matthew 23, the Lord
says of them, all their works they do for to be seen of men. They make broad their phylacteries.
Those phylacteries were little leather pouches, leather boxes,
which showed, well, which they contained the scriptures, the
Hebrew scriptures, and it showed how dedicated they were. Look
at how dedicated we are. We wear these things on our foreheads. and they enlarged the borders
of their garments, and they loved the uppermost rooms of feasts,
and the chief seats of the synagogues, and greetings in the markets,
and to be called of men Rabbi, Rabbi, Master, Master. And so the Lord is scathing of
their hypocrisy. The Lord goes on to pronounce
woe upon them in Matthew 23. Woe upon you, scribes and Pharisees,
hypocrites, for ye are like unto whitened sepulchres, which indeed
appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men's
bones and of all uncleanness. Even so, ye are outwardly appear
righteous unto men, but within ye are full of hypocrisy and
iniquity. That word hypocrisy carries with
it the idea of acting like wearing a mask, pretending to be something
other than they are. These men looked for a speck
in the eye of others, but they ignored the plank in their own
eye, didn't they? They looked for the smallest
indiscretions in others. I pray that the Lord would humble
us, humble us by these things, I really do. Is there not a Pharisee
lurking in each one of us? Are we not pretenders to some
degree, pretending to be something other than we really are? How
often are we ready to point out the sins of others when we ourselves
are sinners by nature? May the Lord cause us to be honest
with ourselves and honest before him. He says, If we confess our sins
he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and cleanse
us from all unrighteousness. These religious men find fault
in the Lord. Isn't it remarkable? These scribes
and pharisees would have known the news of the miracles, wouldn't
they? that the Lord Jesus had raised that little girl from
the dead, that he'd fed 5,000 peoples with just a few morsels
of food, that he walked through the streets, and when he walked
through the streets, the people lay there sick in the streets
just for him to touch them, and everyone he touched was healed.
These men point out, You haven't washed your hands. You haven't
washed your hands. Not just removing dirt, of course.
You haven't performed the ritual of washing your hands. Most of these men may have. Some
of them, I should say. Some of these men who are zealous
may have done this in private. But we already know that they
don't generally do that, do they? They love the praise of men,
didn't they? Rather than the praise of God.
And they usually perform these ceremonies in public. In verse five of our passage
in Mark, We read, then, the Pharisees and scribes asked him, why walk
not thou, disciples, according to the tradition of the elders,
but eat bread with unwashed hands? And here's how the Lord responds. Verse six, he answered and said
unto them, well have Isaiah prophesied of you hypocrites. As it is written,
this people honoreth me with their lips, but their heart is
far from me. Howbeit in vain do they worship
me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men. For laying
aside the commandment of God, ye hold the tradition of men
as the washing of pots and cups and many other such like things
ye do. And he said unto them, Full well ye reject the commandment
of God, that ye may keep your own tradition. And the Lord goes
on in the following verses to expose their other contempt for
the commandments of God. which they themselves confessed
to uphold. But you say, if a man shall say
to his father or mother, it is Corbyn, that is to say, a gift
by whatsoever thou mightest be profited by me, he shall be free. And you shall suffer him no more
to do aught for his father or his mother, making the word of
God of none effect through your tradition, which he had delivered,
and many such like things you do. So the Lord is pointing out
their deceit when they declared this thing called Corban. When
something is declared Corban, it is declared or dedicated to
the temple, the use of the temple. And so they use this tradition
to avoid the obligation to care and help their poor parents.
They were saying that I can't help them by any means I have
because it's dedicated to the temple. They got out of it, got
out of caring for their parents. They disregarded the commandment
to honor their father and their mother, making the word of God
of none effect. And so they grossly dishonored
the very law that they professed to uphold. And yet here they
are accusing the Lord, the Lord of the law, that's our Lord,
the Lord of the law, of eating without washing. And of course,
washing is very important. As we know, washing with water
is often performed in the scriptures. Remember in Exodus chapter 40,
Aaron and his sons were to be washed with water at the door
of the tabernacle before the holy garments were put on. And
that ceremonial washing is a picture, isn't it, of what must be performed
before we enter into the presence of God. We need to be washed
clean before we enter the presence of God. But that washing is not
by our own hands. We can't wash ourselves. We have
to have someone wash us. In Titus, we read of that spiritual
washing. That is not by works of righteousness,
which we have done, not by these hands, but according to his mercy,
he saved us by the washing of regeneration and renewing of
the Holy Ghost. The psalmist says, create in
me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.
God must do the cleansing for these accusers, these accusers. added their own tradition to
these washings. They complicated religion. They
invented these procedures, the washing of pots and cups and
many other such like things, as the Lord says. These men had
clean hands physically, but they had a filthy heart, and that
was their problem. And having rebuked these religious
leaders, the Lord Jesus calls the people to himself to teach
them a very important truth regarding the source of all our defilement. Let's read from verse 14 of Mark.
He said unto them, hearken unto me, every one of you, and understand. There is nothing from without
a man that entering into him can defile him. But the things
which come out of him, those are they that defile the man. If any man has ears to hear,
let him hear. And when he was entered into
the house from the people, his disciples asked him concerning
the parable. And he said unto them, Are ye
so without understanding also? Do ye not perceive that whatsoever
thing from without entereth into the man, it cannot defile him?
Because it entereth not into his heart, but into the belly,
and goeth out into the draught, purging all meats. And he said,
that which cometh out of the man, that defileth the man. For from within, out of the heart,
deceit, sorry, out of the heart, perceived evil thoughts, adulteries,
fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit,
lasciviousness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness,
all these evil things come from within and defile the man. You know, to one degree or another,
all fleshly religion is like the religion of the Pharisees,
isn't it? They operate on the assumption
that the defilement comes from without. The corruption comes
from an external source. But the Lord is describing something
else here, isn't he? It's not easily understood by
fleshly reasoning. And so the Lord says, if any
man has ears to hear, let him hear. They had ears, didn't they? What's he saying? He's saying,
this is a spiritual truth, and unless the Lord gives you spiritual
ears to hear spiritual truths, you won't hear at all. If any
man has ears to hear, let him hear. The Lord says, hearken unto me, every
one of you, and understand. This is all about understanding. When the Lord speaks then, then
the Lord speaks then of a terrible condition, a terrible condition. And it's a condition that you
and I cannot remedy. Something that has affected us
since the fall of our parents in the garden. And it affects
everything about us. There is nothing in us that is
not affected. It affects the totality of our
being. It affects every man's heart.
It comes from within. It is from the heart. We are
sinners in our very being. All those things, evil thoughts,
adulteries, fornications, murders and so on, they're just an outworking
of the corruption that is within. You know, I once knew a man who
thought, well, you know, if I could just not stop talking and isolate
myself, I could stop myself from sinning more, and that way I
can have an assurance that I'm a Christian. Friends, we're not
sinners because of what we do. We do things, we do these things
because we are sinners, sinners by our very nature. It affects
our very will. It affects our reasoning, it
affects the man's mind. Our entire being has been permeated
with sin. I recently watched a fascinating
mini-series called Chernobyl. I know some of you have watched
it as well. It documents a terrible nuclear
accident that occurred in Russia back in 1986. The short story is that the power
plant exploded due to human error. and ejected radioactive material
everywhere around and the early responders came in to try to
put the fire out and they found themselves exposed to terrible
amounts of radiation equivalent to millions of x-rays just in
a very short period of time. And every cell in their body
was completely and irreversibly damaged because of it. And I
tell that story because, to me, it seems like a good illustration
of sin. In the fall, we were completely
irradiated by sin. There wasn't a single cell in
our body that wasn't affected. And interestingly, those men
who looked at the reactor, who were exposed, seemed to recover
for just a day or so. They recover. But the radiation
damage was so terrible inside that it took hold and they died. And in the same way, I thought,
well, when our parents fell in the garden, they didn't die immediately,
did they? Adam lived 930 years and then
he died. But my point simply is this,
that sin has lethally damaged us. Lethally damaged us and it's
damaged us in ways so profound that we just cannot understand.
Every part of us has been permeated with corruption such that this
body must die. For the man is a sinful and depraved
creature. That is what sin has done. But
we have trouble comprehending it, don't we? We have trouble comprehending
it. We're capable, I'm sure, of things that we would never
dream of. And we see those things in the
judgment of the cross, don't we? When the Lord was punished
justly for the sins that we deserve. That's a vivid representation,
a vivid picture of what this sin has done and what we justly
deserve from it. We are spiritually dead to God
in trespasses and sins. That's the natural man. And apart
from Christ, sinful men are utterly lost. Utterly lost. We lost all sense of who we were,
and we lost all sense of who God was, or God is. This doctrine,
this doctrine of man's depravity, is not welcomed by the natural
man. The natural man loves to hear
the dignity of man. He loves to hear of the nobility
of man. He believes that man has some
righteousness to some degree. He rejects the notion that we
are unrighteous because he's protecting his own righteousness.
It offends his pride. The natural man loves to hear
of these things, but the scripture plainly speaks about our condition
in such ways we cannot deny. The natural man has no ability,
no ability to seek the true God. The natural man has no ability
to understand the true God, no ability to do any good to any
standard that God accepts. In Job 15 we read, What is man
that he should be clean, and he which is born of a woman that
he should be righteous? Behold, he putteth no trust in
his saints, yea, the heavens are not clean in his sight. Even
the heavens, how much more abominable is filthy man which drinketh
iniquity like water. The truth is, isn't it, that
iniquity comes as natural to us as drinking a glass of water
when we're thirsty. Just like water, iniquity is
easy to come by and it's close by all the time and we drink
it over and over and over. Men will blame all sorts of things
for their wickedness. They'll blame circumstances of
this life. They'll blame the influence of
others. But the Lord here is saying this issue of wickedness
lies squarely at our feet. The Lord said, it is that which
cometh out of the man that defileth the man. Jeremiah 17 says, the
heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. Who can know it? And that's our
problem, isn't it? That's our problem. Fallen man
doesn't know the wickedness of his own heart. The extent of
it, the depth of it, his fallen nature has clouded his judgment
of it. He can't even understand his
own self. And so we have to look to the
Word of God to give us the answers, to give us the truth in these
things. We're never going to arrive at the conclusion without
the Lord telling us what that is. We're never going to arrive
at that conclusion by our own reasoning. So turn with me, if
you will, to Romans chapter 3. Romans chapter 3. So I realise that this message
is a solemn message for us and I don't want to beat anyone down
in their spirit. Lord knows there is enough sadness
and struggle in this world already. This life for many is a sea of
sorrows mixed with fleeting moments of happiness. I pray the Lord
will give us a happy life. I pray the Lord will give you
a happy life. I really do. But the way of the Lord in saving
his children is to first cause them to mourn. The Lord said in Matthew 5, blessed
are they that mourn. Blessed are they that mourn.
We have to be made weak. We're mourning over it. We mourn
that we're guilty before God and that we've transgressed and
broken every single law. You remember when Peter was addressing
the crowd in Acts chapter 2, and he said to the men there
present, he said, this Jesus, whom you have crucified, has
been made Lord and Christ. And what was their response?
They were cut to the heart. And they said, what shall we
do? What shall we do? We have to be made weak. When
we are weak, he is strong. His strength is made perfect
in our weakness. Paul said, a wretched man that
I am. But there is a promise in that
morning, isn't there? Blessed are they that mourn,
for they shall be comforted. But we won't appreciate that
comfort of the Lord until we experience the discomfort. These
early chapters of Romans works to do two things. It works to
lay man as low in the dust as possible and to show the Lord
Jesus Christ as his only hope. So here in Romans 3, We're looking from verse 10.
First of all, notice four nones, N-O-N-E. As it is written, there is none
righteous, no, not one. There is none that understandeth.
There is none that seeketh after God. They have all gone out of
the way. They are all together become
unprofitable. There is none that doeth good. No, not one. None is righteous. None understands. None, there's
none that seeketh after God. None that doeth good. No, there is none righteous. But what about that person I
know? No, not one. Not one. The natural man can
only imagine what righteousness is, what true righteousness is.
He's ignorant of the righteousness of God. And that's why we read
in Romans 10, they being ignorant of God's righteousness and going
about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted
themselves unto the righteousness of God. The righteousness of
God is the only true measure of righteousness, isn't it? And
believers know they don't have a shred of righteousness they
can bring to the table of salvation. There is nothing these hands
can do to make us righteous before God. You recall those hands of those thieves
that were nailed to the cross either side of the Lord Jesus.
What a great picture of salvation this is. They both rebuked the
Lord initially, but then one of them repented. And what did
he say? Remember me, Lord, when thou
comest into thy kingdom. And the Lord Jesus answered,
Verily I say unto you, today shalt thou be with me in paradise. What a picture. Those hands were
fixed, fixed to the cross. What could he do? Not a skerrick,
not a skerrick except believe God. God's people know that they bring
nothing to the table of salvation. It's all been brought. It's all
been done. It's all been accomplished. Here's
all our righteousness. The natural man always wants
to bring something to the table of salvation, something that
shows he is worthy of favour, a prayer he's prayed. A decision
is made, some sort of act of dedication that he can point
to and say, there it is, there's why God saved me. And they say,
well, that being the case, well, that is what he did, that's what
he did to make God's salvation work for him. Robbing God of his glory. Salvation
is of the Lord. The Lord won't reward you for
his work. The Lord Jesus was that one who
fulfilled all the law of God. You didn't do it. He was the
one who gave his life a ransom for many. That blood effectually
secured the salvation of everyone that it was shed for. And God
the Father raised him up, didn't he, and seated him at his right
hand. on his finished work. Our salvation
is a blood-bought salvation. He paid our ransom. Friends,
the Lord is serious about these things. He will not allow a man
to boast that God needed his help. in salvation. You recall when David was bringing
the ark of God back that it was on a new cart and the oxen that
were towing that cart stumbled and Uzzah, a fellow named Uzzah,
saw that the ark was perhaps moving and he reached his hand
out and placed his hand on it and the Lord smote him there
and then. He presumed, didn't he? He presumed
that God needed his help to uphold something that the Lord was working.
Don't put your hand to God's provision. The Lord doesn't need
our cooperation to save us. He doesn't need our permission
to save us. He's not looking to you or I
for anything. We have nothing to offer but sin. Our only offering
is that which God has already provided, isn't he? And he accepts
everything he provides. Our offering is the person of
the Lord Jesus Christ. He will provide a lamb himself.
And that offering has already been accepted. Don't rob God
of his glory. God has already made provision
The scripture declares that Christ is all our righteousness before
God. 1 Corinthians 1.30. You'll be
familiar with it. But of him are ye in Christ Jesus,
who of God is made unto us wisdom and righteousness and sanctification
and redemption. Christ is all the believers'
righteousness. I love that. I love that. If he's looking to Christ for
perfect righteousness, then he's not looking to me. Christ is
all our wisdom, Christ is all our righteousness, and Christ
is all our sanctification. That means he is all our holiness. The natural man's religion believes
he has some part in that holiness, some part in sanctification.
He believes that sanctification is some process and he can make
progress in it. And so religious people constantly
work on being made or making themselves more and more holy. And those that appear to do this
imaginary work, and that's what it is, it's imaginary work, at
some point they'll look down their noses at others who can't
do it so well. People flock and fawn over the
Dalai Lama when he visits. He's a Buddhist monk, if you
don't know, and he's considered a spiritual leader. He lives
what the world would describe as a pious and holy life. And so they address him as his
holiness. If that man knew holiness, he
would not accept that title. Worldly religion always looks
on the outside. Outward religion, like the religion
of the Pharisees we're seeing here, wants to take fallen man
and try and clean him up on the outside to teach people, don't
touch this. Go there, don't do this, do that. Truth is, the rules of touch
not, taste not, handle not, are not the creed of scripture. It's
the creed of the world. They are the commandments and
doctrines of men. But men regard these things as
holy actions, holiness. Friends, we cannot do holiness.
That's the plain statement. We cannot do holiness any more
than a man can flap his arms and fly. I know that's a silly
picture, but imagine a man believing he can flap his arms and he can
fly, and the faster he flaps, the more chance he's got of elevating
himself. And progressive sanctification,
this idea that you can progressively become more and more holy, is
just as silly. It's just as futile. We cannot
do holiness. You are either holy or you are
not holy. You cannot make yourself holy. Holiness is not a process or
a procedure or a way you can improve yourself before God.
Holiness is a divine attribute of God. It's a perfection of
God. And it's not If it's not perfect, it's not holy. That's it. There's no degrees
of perfection. There's no degrees of holiness.
Why would we want to insult God by calling the work of our filthy
hands holy? Even our best works are filthy
rags. That's what the scripture says.
Holiness is all or nothing. The only holiness there is, is
His perfect holiness. God made Him who knew no sin
to be all our sanctification, all our holiness, without which
no man can see the Lord. God declares his people holy,
doesn't he? He declares his people holy.
The natural man wants to look at that list that we read that
the Lord Jesus spoke, all those horrible things, those wicked
things, and he wants to see if any of them apply to him. But
just one will do. What's the first one the Lord
spoke of there? Evil thoughts. That's the first
one. Evil thoughts. Have you ever
thought an evil thought? A better question is, have you
ever thought a holy thought? That's the question really, isn't
it? You and I have never thought a holy thought, ever. The truth is, there is sin in
our prayers, isn't there? There's sin and unbelief in our
faith. Every good intention you ever
had is marred with sin. The Lord mentions adulteries,
fornications, murders. What did the Lord say in Matthew
chapter 5? You have heard it said, he says,
that it was said by them of old time, thou shalt not commit adultery,
but I say unto you that whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after
her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart. And
he goes on, you have heard it said that by them of old time
thou shalt not kill. And whosoever shall kill shall
be in danger of the judgment. But I say unto you that whosoever
is angry with his brother without cause shall be in danger of the
judgment. The source of our problem is
inside, isn't it? The problem for the natural man
is that he only knows one nature. Believers are the only people
on this earth with two natures. Two natures. Every believer has
a nature that he was born with and the nature he was given in
the new birth. One is a perfectly sinful nature
and the other is a perfectly holy nature. One is a natural
man and the other is a spiritual man. And those two natures constantly
war one against another. That sinful nature is like that
black stump we have in our emblem. I'm so glad that Merrin painted
it as black and as dead as it can be. But here is the miracle
of the new birth. God plants a new life, a new
life in his people, a new nature which springs up in him. Christ
in you, the hope of glory. And both of these natures, they're
in one package, I suppose you could say, and they come out
like hot and cold water coming out of the same tap. But they
are different in their origin, and they are two distinct natures,
and they are opposite, as opposite as hot and cold. Paul speaks
of these natures in Romans 7. He says, I find then a law that
when I would do good, evil is present with me, for I delight
in the law of God after the inward man. But I see another law in
my members, warring against the law of my mind and bringing me
into captivity to the law of sin, which is in my members.
O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from this body
of death?" And we already know the answer to that, don't we?
Paul says, I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. Romans 3 has so much to teach
us about fallen man, and unless we read what God says about it,
we would never conclude these things of ourselves, would we?
The Lord says, there is none that understandeth. Natural man
has absolutely no understanding of spiritual things. He's not
just slow to understand, He is utterly incapable of understanding. The natural man sees no beauty
in the revelation of the gospel. He has no love for Christ and
him crucified. The same scriptures which cause
us to sing and to be joyful have no effect on the natural man. No amount of education, no amount
of logic can convince him. You can put the best evidence
before him, You can make the best argument, you can even present
the truth of the gospel with great clarity, but we know that
the Spirit of God must accompany any revelation of God to have
any effect. And so the truth is we must be
illuminated by the Spirit and the Spirit must apply that truth.
The Lord said to Nicodemus, you can't see the kingdom of God. It's an amazing spiritual work
of God to regenerate a sinner like us. to make that sinner
see and understand the beauty of the Lord Jesus Christ and
their need of him. So the Lord Jesus Christ called
the people together to teach him and he says, hearken unto
me every one of you and understand these scribes and Pharisees have
no understanding of what righteousness is. They have no understanding
of spiritual things. The natural man, we read in 1
Corinthians, the natural man receiveth not the things of the
Spirit of God, for they are foolishness unto him. Neither can he know
them, because they are spiritually discerned. Notice those words. Notice those words. He does not
say, sorry, he does not receive them. He does not receive them.
Neither can he know them. He can't know them. There is none that seeketh after
God. Somebody might say, well, I've
been seeking God all my life. Well, not according to the scriptures.
You haven't. You might have been seeking some
view of God that you had in your mind, but no man seeketh after
the God who is. He's got to be revealed. He's
got to reveal himself to you, and he revealed himself at the
most unlikely time. In Isaiah 65, and I found this
a fascinating verse, 65 when it says, I am found of them that
sought me not. I was manifested unto them that
didn't ask for me. You haven't been searching for
God all your life. God says I was found by those who didn't seek
me. I was manifested to them that didn't ask for me. Natural man is not seeking God. He may be seeking a lot of things,
but he says, the Lord says, you did not seek me and you didn't
choose me, I chose you. If you know me, it's because
I sought you. If you've seen me, it's because I've revealed
to you, I've manifested myself to you. Don't take pride in religious
pursuits of God. If you are seeking the God who
is, you know that it was he who sought you and he put that desire
in your heart. The cause of our salvation is
a sovereign work of grace in the heart of a dead man giving
him life, though he sought not God. There is none that seeketh after
God. You remember the Lord Jesus went
across the sea, hopped in a boat, and I think, from memory from
the scriptures, I don't believe there was anything else over
there. He went over to the Gardenese, to that demoniac, demoniac, the
man possessed with a demon. And so he went across the sea
to see, And that demoniac was a lunatic, really. He was living amongst the tombs,
and they tried to shackle him and contain him, but he would
easily break the shackles that they put on him, and he'd run
around crazy. He wasn't seeking God. He wasn't
seeking God. And then a little later on when
the Lord had done a miracle on him, he was, what did the scripture
say? He was found seated at the feet
of Jesus and clothed and in his right mind. That's what the Lord
has to do with us. He has to clothe us. and suit
us and put us in our right mind. And the only way we have a right
mind about anything is through the scriptures, through the gospel.
The gospel is the preaching of the gospel brings sanity to this
world. There's no other way of understanding
anything apart from the preaching of the gospel. The Apostle Paul, he was on the
road to Damascus, wasn't he? And he was knocked down in the
dirt. And what did he say? He said, who art thou, Lord?
He didn't, he wasn't seeking God. Verse 12 of Romans 3, they are
all gone out of the way. They are together become unprofitable. There is none that doeth good,
no, not one. The natural man has no goodness
in him. no goodness to bring to God to
warrant His favor. There is only one that is good.
I don't want to dishearten anyone
with this message, but this matter of our corruption, this matter
of our utter and total depravity is a sobering truth that we must
all face. You see, the problem is that
we have We have this trouble applying these things to the
sweet little old lady that lives down the road, who worked in
community service for 50 years and bakes bickies for everybody.
Or the Dalai Lama. We have trouble, don't we? We
have trouble considering that he's an evil, corrupt man, like
we all are. That's the nature of us. He's
equally as sinful. They call him holy. Good deeds
are not enough. Good intentions are not enough
to save you. Only God saves. Let's finish this up. Romans
3 verse 13, their throat is an open sepulcher, an open tomb. Look down that throat and what
are you going to see? All you're going to see is dead
man's bones. dead man's bones, no life at
all inside. Their tongues, they have, sorry,
and with their tongues they have used deceit. That means that
men are liars. With their tongues they have
used deceit. How many times have you got a liar to be called a
liar? Just once will do. Only God speaks the truth. The
poison of asps is under their lips, whose mouth is full of
cursing and bitterness. Look at the extent of the corruption
here, the throat, the tongue, the lips, the mouth. Their feet are swift to shed
blood. Saul was persecuting the church. And then he got knocked down,
didn't he? What a word of grace. He was persecuting the church,
and he was seeking the blood of believers. And the Lord did
a work of grace in his heart. Destruction and misery are in
their ways, and the way of peace they have not known. The Lord,
not Jesus Christ, is the Prince of Peace, isn't he? If you're
going to have peace with God, you're going to have to have
the Prince of Peace stand in your place and on your behalf.
The way of peace have they not known? There is no fear of God
before their eyes. The natural believing man has
no idea that he even needs peace. He has no idea that he even has
to get peace with God. He has no idea there is a peacemaker. But with God, there's good news,
isn't there? There's good news. He's gonna take these vile sinners
and he's going to save them according to his mercy and grace. Contrary to everything they deserve. While we were yet sinners, Christ
died for us. Friends, this gospel is all of
grace. And God is going to get glory
out of all of it in the perfect finished work of his dear son. Let's pray.