Let's go back now to Romans chapter
3. I believe I have a message that
will be a blessing to you. I know it's
needful. Our subject tonight is depravity
and its cure. Depravity and its cure. And as I read this text again,
This is what God says of all men by nature. If you're here
tonight and you've never been brought to cast all your care
on Christ, this is God's description of you. This is what God says
of you. Imagine if you were about to
walk into a courtroom and stand before a judge And you heard
that judge say all these things about you before you ever walked
into that courtroom. That wouldn't be a good place
to be, would it? We're going to all meet God.
We're going to all stand before God. We don't know how soon it'll
be. Some could die tonight. You're going to meet God. This
is what God says of all men outside of Christ. Romans 3, 9. What
then, are we better than they? This is speaking of you and I
who believe the gospel. Are we better than they who do
not believe? No and no wise, for we both prove,
both Jews and Gentiles, that they are all under sin. Now this is speaking of us all
by nature, how we come into this world. Now listen to this, as
it is written, there is none righteous, no not one. That means
you're guilty before God by nature. There is none that understandeth.
There is none that seeketh after God. They are all gone out of
the way. They are together become unprofitable. There is none that doeth good,
no, not one. And here's what he means by that.
Their throat is an open sepulcher. With their tongues they've used
deceit. 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 ways. And the way of peace have they
not known. There is no fear of God before
their eyes. Now my goal in this message is
to show you, first of all, how totally ruined we all are as
we come into this world. How completely, totally depraved
we are as we come into this world. And then, I want you to see that
since this is the case, and this is how we all are by nature,
then the cure for each one of these aspects of our depravity
has got to be God. This is what we are. And so the
only cure for each one of these things has got to be God, the
triune God in the person of our Savior, Christ Jesus. That means
we don't contribute to any of this. Because here's what we
are, and to fix that, God's got to do it all. He's got to do
every bit of it. Now when we declare that God
chose a people and Christ redeemed us and the Spirit of God regenerates
us, we're not declaring that the elect of God are better than
those who are yet rebels and in unbelief. We're not saying
that at all. That's not the case. What then? Are we better than they? No and
no why's. We before proved, both Jews and
Gentiles, that they are all under sin. Now this is the case with
all men by nature. All come into the world under
sin. Now here's the point I want you
to get tonight. As we're born into this world,
we're all under sin, totally depraved, totally sinful, so
that all those that God saves must be made an entirely new
creation and God must make that creation. You see, nothing about
our sin nature and what we are by nature, how we come into this
world, none of that can be used. You realize when you hold your
child, when they're first born, If God saves that child, nothing
about that child you're holding in your hand is what's going
to be in glory. God's going to give it a new
spirit, and he's going to give it a new body. It's going to
be made an entirely new creation if it comes into God's presence.
Because what you're holding in your hand, you have corrupted. So everything about this new
creation is of God, all right? Let's go and let's start here. There's seven things here, and
I want you to see these seven things, these seven aspects of
our depravity and how God is the cure. First of all, concerning
righteousness, Romans 3.10. As it is written, there is none
righteous, no not one. Now, God says that all by nature
are guilty. All by nature are guilty. Adam
was the only man that ever was created in innocency. The only one. Because he was
a federal seminal head. That means everybody that's going
to be born of Adam, he represented. And so he's innocent. He's the
only one. But by his sin, as a head, Everybody
in him sinned when he sinned. And so we all became guilty before
God. Guilty before God. That means
we're unrighteous. None of us by nature are righteous.
We're guilty before God. Guilty before God. Think about that. So then, you
and I can't justify ourselves. We cannot make ourselves to be
without sin. We cannot make ourselves to be
righteous before God. God alone makes us righteous. God alone does that. It's only
by His Son, Christ Jesus, that we're made righteous. Now just
like all those that would be born of Adam were represented
by Adam, all those who shall be born of Christ were represented
by Christ. So the scripture tells us, as
by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so in the
exact same way, by the obedience of one, shall many be made righteous. It's not by our obedience, it's
by Christ's obedience. It's by Christ's obedience. The
righteousness of God is by the faithfulness of Christ Jesus. It's a righteousness that's already
manifest. And it's not manifest by me or
you or anybody else in this world. It's manifest by Christ the Lord,
by His faithfulness. Romans 3.22. And it's imputed
to those who believe on Christ. The righteousness of God is by
faith of Jesus Christ. He's the righteousness of God.
And His righteousness is unto all and upon all them that believe. That's the only way we're going
to receive righteousness is believing on Christ. And here's why. For
there's no difference between any of us. For all have sinned
and come short of the glory of God. So we have to get our righteousness
from somebody else. And that one is Christ. And we're
justified and we're made righteous freely by God's grace. That means
we don't earn it. We don't do anything to merit
this grace. And it's all brought to us by
Christ redeeming us from the curse of the law by being made
a curse for us. This is what He did for His people.
Romans 3.24, being justified freely by His grace through the
redemption that's in Christ Jesus. And God set forth Christ to be
the propitiation, that is, to be the one in whom satisfaction
is made, the one where God will be merciful to us. Verse 25,
whom God had set forth to be a propitiation through faith
in His blood. And all of this is to declare
God's righteousness. It's all to declare how God can
be just and justifier. He says there, Romans 3.25, to
declare His righteousness for the remission of sins, for the
forgiveness and putting away of our sins. He's declaring His
righteousness. Verse 26, how that He can be
just and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus. So,
none are righteous. That means we can't do a thing
to fix that. We can't cure that. So the cure
for our problem of not being righteousness is God makes His
people righteous by His grace, by Christ His Son, and we receive
it. It's given to us freely through
faith in Him. All right, now here's the next
thing concerning our understanding. Concerning our understanding,
Romans 3 11, there is none that understandeth. By nature, no
man has any spiritual understanding of the true and living God and
of what He requires." Now, that seems like that's a statement
that you couldn't back up because, I mean, everybody in here that's
old enough to comprehend what I'm saying can hear me saying
that you don't have any understanding of who God is and what God requires. But spiritually, it means you
won't receive it. You can't receive it. You don't
know who God is and what God requires of yourself. It's going to have to be given
to you. This is just the fact. No man has spiritual understanding
of what he himself is. No man has a spiritual understanding
of Christ and what he accomplished. who he is, what he accomplished.
No man has any spiritual understanding, period. Here's why. We have our understanding darkened,
being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance
that is in us because of the blindness of our hearts. That's
Ephesians 4.18. We're alienated from the life
of God through ignorance that's in us and therefore our understanding
is darkened and our heart is blind. You know, it's sort of
like, I guess you could illustrate it like if a man doesn't have
oxygen long enough, it affects his mind and his understanding. We're alienated from the life
of God by nature so that we can't understand. Our understanding's
darkened. We're blind by nature. And not
only will we not receive the things of God, we cannot receive
the things of God. The natural man receiveth not
the things of the Spirit of God for their foolishness unto him,
neither can he know them. Whence then cometh wisdom? That's
the question in Job 28, 20. Whence then cometh wisdom and
where is the place of understanding, seeing it's hid from the eyes
of all living and kept close from the fowls of the air? Where's
wisdom gonna come from? Where are we gonna get understanding?
Now if I have no understanding, it's gonna be impossible for
me to give myself understanding, isn't it? God's gonna have to
do it. The Lord giveth wisdom. Out of
his mouth cometh knowledge and understanding. Proverbs 2, 6. The Lord giveth wisdom. Out of
his mouth comes knowledge and understanding. Psalm 119, 130. The entrance of thy words giveth
life. You're just hearing my words,
but if he makes his words to enter, you're gonna have understanding. He giveth understanding to the
simple. Understanding and wisdom is in
and by Christ Jesus. Just like righteousness is in
and by Christ, wisdom is in and by Christ. First John 520, go
there with me just, First John 520. Listen to this. We know that the Son of God is
come and has given us an understanding that we may know Him that is
true and we are in Him that is true even in His Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal
life. Christ came and He gave us understanding. Remember the two men on the Emmaus
road, they're walking along, they're talking to Christ and
they don't even know they're talking to Him. because he withheld
that from them, so they couldn't even know him. And then once
he reveals himself to them and he starts talking to them and
telling them what the scripture said, they still couldn't understand. But the scripture says, then
opened he their understanding that they might understand the
scripture. That's what's going to have to happen. God has to
open up the scriptures to you and give to you the spirit of
wisdom and revelation and the knowledge of Him. The eyes of
your understanding being enlightened that you may know what is the
hope of His calling and what is the riches of the glory of
His inheritance in His saints. See, we have no righteousness.
God has to provide that. We don't even have an understanding.
God has to give us an understanding. Alright, thirdly, no sinner seeks
God. Romans 3.11, Romans 3.11, there
is none that seeketh after God. Now, you look around in the world
and it looks like there is a multitude of people seeking God. Man by
nature seeks his God. Man by nature seeks the God of
his imagination. But no man by nature seeks God. No man seeks God. No man wants
God to save them. Men will seek things in this
world to save them, but they won't seek God to save them.
In Isaiah 31.1, he says, Woe to them that go down to Egypt
for help, and stay on horses, and trust in chariots, because
there are many, and in horsemen, because they are very strong,
but they look not unto the Holy One of Israel, neither seek the
Lord. We'll seek a horse. We'll seek
a horse. That doesn't seem strong to me.
Well, let's put it in today's terms. We'll seek a jet, or a
tank, or a missile. That's what a horse was to them
in their day. We think that's going to save
us, but we won't seek God. We won't seek God. The people
turneth not unto him that smiteth them, neither do they seek the
Lord of hosts. Lord can chasten you and you can't receive, you
can't, you won't turn to Him and seek Him chastening you unless
He makes you know, hey, I'm the one chastening you. We won't,
still won't seek Him. Isn't that right? Something comes
up in Providence, we'll try every way to fix it and everything
else and blame every other cause before finally He brings us to
the end of it and He makes you see, I'm the one doing this to
show you, you're not seeking Me. Then finally, because He
did it, we'll seek Him. This is due to the pride of our
sin nature. And this sin nature is still
with me and you that believe. This is why we don't seek Him
until He makes you seek Him. Scripture says the wicked through
the pride of his countenance will not seek after God. God's
not in all his thoughts. This is why you and me as believers,
something Something providentially becomes a problem, it's pride
that won't let us turn and seek God. The Lord fixed this. I can't
do it. It's pride that won't let us
do that. Well, if we won't seek God, how are we going to be made
to seek Him? God alone. Christ said, no man
can come to me except the Father which has sent me draw him. Was
that just back then? Is that just in the first hour?
That's all the way through this life. If you're going to ever
come to Christ, even as a believer, when you turn from your way and
you seek Him, it's because you're being drawn to Christ by God. By God. Concerning all for whom
Christ died, He said, if I be lifted up, I'll draw all men
unto Me. He's gonna draw all his people
to him. The Lord told Jeremiah, he said, he appeared to me and
he said, I've loved thee with an everlasting love and therefore
with loving kindness have I drawn thee. The Song of Solomon, it
says, draw me and we will run after thee. But not until he
draws us. All right, fourthly, concerning
the way of God. And when you talk about the way
of God, we're talking about the way of God's holy law. We're
talking about the way of God's gospel. Whatever period of time
God's dealing with a man, Whatever way it is God's teaching that
man at the time, be it those sitting at Mount Sinai or be
it those that are being brought to Christ or whatever, man by
nature will not, he will not go in God's way. He's going to
turn aside from God's way. Look at Romans 3.12. They are
all gone out of the way. As soon as God gave the law at
Mount Sinai, This wasn't just some little plaque somebody's
got up on their wall. God sent a man up into a mountain
and wrote the law on tablets of stone and brought them back
down. And as soon as God gave the law, God said, they've turned
aside quickly out of the way which I commanded them. And it
was because they got tired of waiting on Moses and they said,
they said, Aaron, make us a god. Something we can see. And so
he said, okay, give me earrings and some of that gold we got
from those Egyptians that God gave us favor to get. And he
took that and he melted it down and he made a golden calf. And
they all started dancing around a golden calf. They turned out
of God's way. And that's not God's fault. It's
man's fault. Scripture says, this only have
I found that God has made man upright, but they have sought
out many inventions. The way of peace they know not,
there's no judgment in their goings, they've made them crooked
paths, and whosoever goeth therein shall not know peace. What is
a man's way? What's the way man makes? You look around you, in our neighborhood,
don't talk about God. That's man's way. Don't ever
go to a place where it's to a religious building where God is worshipped
in any form. Just don't have anything to do
with it. Just make sure your kids are not religious at all.
It doesn't matter if it's a lie or true or whatever, just no
religion at all. That's man's way. Keep them out,
that way we don't have to ever talk about it. As long as we
go through life together, we don't have to even discuss it.
and just keep it off the radar completely. That's man's way. God said, my people have committed
two evil. They've forsaken me, the fountain
of living waters. That's number one. And here's
number two. They've hewed them out cisterns.
Broken cisterns that can hold no water. They've forsaken me
and they've carved them out their own way. That's the twofold way
of man, right there. Man's left God's way, all the
way God teaches, and they've made themselves the way which
shall end in death. There is a way that seemeth right
unto man, but the end thereof are the ways of death. So then,
if a man's going to be brought into God's way, who's going to
do it? Who's going to do it? God's going
to have to do it. God's going to have to turn us.
God doesn't turn us the way of the law of Sinai, the works of
our hands. He uses that law to teach us
we can't come to God that way. And then He turns us to Christ
the way. Christ said, I am the way, the
truth, and the life. No man cometh through the Father
but by me. Christ is the way. The only way
you and I are going to be turned into Christ the way and trust
Christ the way to come to God the Father is if God turns us
and brings us to trust Christ the way. All we like sheep have
gone astray. I want you to listen to these
two scriptures, compare these two scriptures together. All
we like sheep have gone astray. We've turned aside, we've gone
out of God's way. We've turned everyone to his
own way and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. That means for all God's elect,
you think about how many elect children God has in all time. Multitudes we don't know. Multitudes
we can't even imagine. And God, and it's all sin of
the iniquity of us turning to our own way. And God took all
of that iniquity of us turning all to our own way and took all
that iniquity and made it all to be on Christ. Made Him to
bear all of that iniquity, all of that sin and all of that guilt
and all that rebellion against God. And then He made Him a curse
to bear the punishment for all that iniquity. And I want you
to see the effectual result. Now go to 1 Peter 2. 1 Peter
2. So Christ went and he bore all
of that, all that justice had to be satisfied that God would
be just and we could be saved. And the effectual result is when
God gives us an understanding, makes us to know we don't have
a righteousness, and makes us to seek after Christ for our
righteousness, and brings us into Christ the way, here's the
result. Now let me read what I read to
you from Isaiah 53. Now listen. All we like sheep
have gone astray, we've turned everyone to his own way, and
the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all. Now here's
the result, 1 Peter 2.25. You were sheep going astray,
but are now returned unto the shepherd and bishop of your soul. There's the effectual result.
If you go home tonight, you take 1 Peter 2.25 and you compare
it to Isaiah 53.6. They both begin, all we like
sheep have gone astray. 1 Peter 2.25, you were sheep
going astray. Isaiah says, we've turned everyone
to his own way and the Lord laid on him the iniquity of us all.
And the result of that is, 1 Peter 2.25, you're now returned to
God's way. You're returned to the bishop
and shepherd of your soul. He brings you into the way. Alright,
fifthly, back in Romans 3, we're all filthy and useless by nature
to God. Filthy before God and useless
to God. Romans 3.12, they are together
become unprofitable. Now that's taken from Psalm 14.3
and the word there is filthy. They are together become filthy.
And the reason that we're unprofitable, that means useless, unserviceable,
unfit to serve God in any capacity, entirely unprofitable and useless
to God. And the reason is, is because
we're filthy in sin and God is holy. He can't use anybody that's
filthy. And again, it's man's own fault.
God didn't create us that way. Scripture says, God saw everything
that he had made and behold, it was very good. That's including
Adam. But after Adam sinned, we all
sinned in Adam. And after that, Scripture says,
God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and
that every imagination, now think about this, every imagination
of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. Somebody will say, well I don't
remember when, before God called me, before I believed on Christ,
I don't remember my thoughts being that bad, only evil continually. I don't care if you was thinking
about little pretty boa bees flying around pretty red roses.
It was only evil continually to God, whatever you were thinking. And listen to this. What did
God say about that? It repented the Lord that he
had made man on the earth. He grieved him at his heart.
And the Lord said, I will destroy man whom I have created from
the face of the earth, both man and beast, and the creeping thing,
and the fowls of the air, for it repenteth me that I have made
them. What do you do when you clean out your garage and you
find a bunch of filthy, useless things that you can't use? What
do you do with it? Don't you take it to the trash heap and
burn it? It's not fit for anything. Well, God said, that's what I'm
going to do with the whole world. Christ, when He gave that parable
of the unprofitable servant, He said, this is what God's going
to do with filthy, useless sinners who meet God in the day of judgment.
He said, cast ye the unprofitable servant into outer darkness.
There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. See, God does with
useless, unprofitable things just what you and I do with them.
You throw them out and you burn them. So if we are going to be
saved, us useless, unprofitable things are going to be saved,
how is it going to be? When God looked on the earth and saw the
thoughts of our hearts was only evil continually and He repented
Him that He made man and He determined He would just throw it all out
and destroy it all, Scripture says, Noah found grace in the
eyes of the Lord. He was just as useless and filthy
and unprofitable as the rest of them, but he found grace in
the eyes of the Lord. That's how we're going to be
saved from this filthy, useless, unprofitability. God alone washes
his people from our filth by his grace. Know you not that
the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? They're filthy,
they're unprofitable. Be not deceived, neither fornicators,
nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of
themselves with mankind, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards,
nor revilers, nor extortioners shall inherit the kingdom of
God. And such were some of you, but you're washed. That's what
you do with filthy things. You'll wash them. By His grace,
you're washed, you're sanctified, you are justified in the name
of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God. And when He's
washed us in regeneration, then God makes us profitable to ourselves
and to others. Thus saith the Lord thy Redeemer,
the Holy One of Israel, I'm the Lord thy God which teacheth thee
to profit, which leadeth thee by the way that thou shouldest
go. That's how He teaches us to profit. He's talking about
teaching us to profit ourselves. I'm going to lead you in the
way, Christ the way. That's how I'm going to teach
you to be a prophet to yourself. That's what He does when He's
watched us and when He's brought us to follow Christ, He makes
us profitable to other lost sinners. He makes us profitable to other
sinners in need of mercy that He's going to call out by His
grace. Paul said, the manifestation
of the Spirit is given to every man to profit with. It gives
you the Spirit of God to profit other sinners. To speak the gospel
and profit other sinners. Paul said, not seeking mine own
profit, but the profit of many that they may be saved. Remember
Onesimus? He was totally unprofitable a
Philemon. He had run away, taken a bunch
of Philemon's stuff and robbed him and he was totally unprofitable
a Philemon. And Philemon was wanting him
to be brought back home so he could have him punished and thrown
out like you do filthy, useless, unprofitable things. But on the
way, God brought him to cross Paul's path and Paul preached
the gospel to him and God saved Onesimus. And so Paul wrote to
Philemon and he said, I beseech thee for my son Onesimus, whom
I have forgotten in my bonds, whom God has made to be born
again while I've been a prisoner here at Rome through my gospel.
I beseech you for Onesimus, my son's sake, which in time past
was to thee unprofitable, but now he's profitable to thee and
me. God has made him profitable.
This is what he means. Paul told Timothy, you take Mark
and you bring him with thee, for he's profitable to me for
the ministry. He's profitable to me to be a
witness of Christ and that's what He's done to every one of
us He's called. He took a bunch of useless, unprofitable,
filthy things and He washed us and sanctified us and justified
us and by teaching us Christ, He sends us into this world and
wherever we are and whatever our sphere of influence is with
others, He makes us to be profitable and uses us in service, being
witnesses of Christ. And when we've done everything
we should do, this is our spirit, we're unprofitable servants.
We're still unprofitable servants. All we've done is that which
was our duty to do. Sixthly, by nature, no sinner
is good. By nature, none of us are good.
We're just talking now about just our daily life and what
we do. Romans 3.12, there's none that
doeth good, no not one. Their throats an open sepulcher,
their throats a grave, their tongues are deceitful, they got
poison of a snake under their lips, their mouths full of cursing
and bitterness, their feet are swift to shed blood, destruction
and misery are in their ways. Now listen to all that description,
dead, deceitful, poisonous, bitter, murderous, destructive, all proceeded
from a dead, deceitful, poisonous, bitter, murderous, destructive
heart. That's where that all came from. Vain religion preaches
morality and they constantly urge sinners to put away their
sinful deeds and to act righteous and holy in front of people and
live good outward lives. But they don't preach Christ
and they don't tell sinners that before God we're incapable of
doing good. Incapable. Absolutely incapable. Will worship only seeks to remedy
the outward part, but it doesn't do anything talking about that
the problem is coming from the heart. And unless the heart is
made right, none of that outward is going to profit anybody. God's
got to give us a new heart. And so they don't preach that
because to preach that you got to preach what I'm preaching.
You got to preach that we're totally incapable of doing good
and we'll only do good if God gives us a new heart and makes
us do good. He's got to do all of this. The
Pharisees are the illustration. They got on to Christ and His
disciples for what? Because they didn't wash their
hands before they ate. Because they said, by not doing
that, your hands are defiling the food. And Christ said, no,
that's not what's defiling things. The heart's what's defiling everything. He said, you hypocrites, well
did Isaiah prophesy you saying, this people draws nine to me
with their mouth, and they honor me with their lips, but their
heart is far from me. In vain they worship me, teaching
for doctrines the commandments of men." They're saying this
is the doctrine of God and it's nothing but the commandment of
a man. And he told them, he said, he said, it's not that which
goes into a man that defiles the man, it's that which comes
out of the man that defiles the man. And they said, you know
that the Pharisees got mad when you preached that? He said, leave
them alone. Every plant that my Heavenly
Father has not planted shall be rooted up. If the blind lead
the blind, they're going to both fall in the ditch. And then they
came and said, well, teach us what you were talking about.
What did you mean by it's not that which goes into a man that
defiles him? You mean it's not liquor like
the Pharisees are teaching? That's not what defiles a man?
No, it's what's coming out of the man that's defiling the man.
He said, those things which proceed out of the mouth come forth from
the heart. They defile the man. Out of the mouth, out of the
heart proceeds evil thoughts and murders and adulteries and
fornications and false witnesses and blasphemies. These are the
things that defile the man, that come in from within the man.
These folks that go off in the wilderness and they're going
to live because they're going to get away from all the defiling things,
that's called aestheticism. You go to the wilderness and
you get away from all the things that you think is defiling the
man and the thing that's defiling everything is right there in
the wilderness. It's you. That's what defiles
a man. That's what the Lord said. Either
make the tree good and its fruit good or the tree is corrupt and
its fruit is corrupt. The tree is known by its fruit.
He said, O generation of vipers, how can you, being evil, speak
good things? For out of the abundance of the
heart, the mouth speaks. A good man out of the good treasure
of the heart brings forth good things, and an evil man out of
the evil treasure brings forth evil things. All right then,
seeing there's none good, seeing that this is coming from the
heart that's evil, how are we going to fix that? How are you
and I going to fix that? How are we going to cure this
aspect of our depravity? We're not. We can't do it. Only
God can. This is why Christ said, you
must be born again. And this right here, it erases
that fantasy that man by his will and his wisdom and his doing
something makes himself to be born again. Your heart is corrupt. My heart is corrupt. And we're
going to have a new heart, which is what being born again is.
It's being given a new nature, a new heart, a new spirit. If
that's going to happen, God's got to do it. How can you bring
a clean thing out of an unclean thing? You go home and you take
a snow white rag and you dip that rag down in a quart of motor
oil and get it good and soaked with motor oil and now you take
what you got there, just that rag covered in motor oil and
you scrub it, scrub it, scrub it and make it snow white. See
if you can do it. That's a sinner with a corrupt
heart being taught by some preacher things to do to be born again.
It can't be done. can't be done. They were born
not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will
of man, but of God. God said a new heart will I give
you, a new spirit will I put in you. God's got to do that
work. Now here's the seventh thing.
No sinner by nature has a fear of God, because none by nature
know Christ a way of peace. Look at verse, Romans 3 17. The way of peace have they not
known? There's no fear of God before their eyes. Christ is
the way of peace. He's the way that no man knows
by nature. Straight is the gate and narrow
is the way which leadeth unto life and few there be that find
it. You know how narrow it is? It's
as narrow as Christ himself. He is that way. He's that narrow
way. The day spring from on high hath
visited us to give light to them that sit in darkness and in the
shadow of death to guide our feet into the way of peace. That's Christ. Christ came, He's
the King of Salem, He's the King of Peace, He's the King of Righteousness,
He's Christ our Melchizedek. He came and He went to the cross
and by His work on the cross, fulfilling all righteousness
for God, He has made reconciliation between God and His people. He's
made us to be at peace with one another. And now the way He comes
and makes us to be at peace and to lay down all our weapons is
He comes and teaches you that it's done. He comes and teaches
you that Christ was delivered for our fences and raised again
for our justification. And Scripture says, and therefore
being justified by faith we have peace with God through Jesus
Christ our Lord. Now there's peace. Peace I leave
with you, Christ said. My peace I give unto you. He's
the peace. He's the peace. And when you
have that peace, now you have the fear of God before your eyes.
You know what that is? That means you hate and you despise
every aspect of self-salvation. Listen to this. The fear of the
Lord is to hate evil. pride, and arrogancy, and the
evil way, and the forward mouth do I hate. That's a description
of self-salvation, self-righteousness, self-sanctification, self-teaching,
all the things that religion does. When he makes you to see
Christ as your peace now, you'll have the fear of God before your
eyes. You will turn from that way, and you'll want to honor
Christ in all that you do. And that's what he accomplishes.
And this is all the work of the Lord, every bit of it. I create
the fruit of the lips, peace, peace to him that's far off and
to him that is near, saith the Lord, and I will heal him. But the wicked, oh, they're like
the troubled sea which cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire
and dirt. There is no peace, saith my God,
to the wicked. So, here's the conclusion of
this whole matter. This is us. Number one, none
righteous. So then, Christ must be made
our righteousness. Number two, none understand. So then, Christ must be made
our wisdom. Number three, none seek. So God
must draw us to Christ. Number four, we're all out of
the way. And therefore, God must bring
us into Christ the way. Number five, we're all unprofitable
and filthy, therefore God must wash us in regeneration and must
make us profitable by making us witnesses of Christ. Number
six, there is none that do good, so therefore the Holy Spirit
must give us a new heart. He must give us a new heart and
we must be constrained to do good by the love of Christ, a
new motive, a right motive, a motive of love and grace. And then seventhly,
there's none that know the way of peace, so there's no fear
of God before their eyes. And so, you know, if a man, the
things that go on in religion, that's not having a fear of God.
If men really knew what it took to effect peace for us and knew
Christ the way of peace, they would have a fear of God to depart
from that mess. That's stuff you wouldn't do
if you really knew God. You'd be too fearful to do it.
That's what I'm saying. So God has to come and make us
see Christ is our peace so that he creates a fear of God in our
hearts so we depart from all manner of self-salvation. So
the point I'm making to you is this. It's just this simple.
Salvation is of the Lord. We have to be made a new, entirely
new creation. conceived of incorruptible seed
with a new spirit, and one day we're going to have a new body
to match it. And it's all going to be of God, A to Z. Amen.