If you will take your Bibles
and turn with me back to Romans chapter 3. Romans the third chapter. Romans chapter 3. And we'll be
looking at several portions of Scripture in this chapter this
morning. Several passages of Scripture
here in this place. The title of the message this
morning is, A Faithful Witness of the Gospel. A Faithful Witness
of the Gospel. Now, imagine, if you will, that
you are given an opportunity to witness to a dying man who
has 24 hours to live. Imagine you are given an opportunity,
not one you force in, not one that you open for yourself. Don't
ever try to open a witness for yourself. Allow the Spirit of
God to do His job, which is to open that witness. It's not for
us to avail ourselves to witness to people. It is of God's hand
that He should open those doors. Now imagine, if you will, that
you have an opportunity. That a man who is dying asks
you concerning matters of eternity, matters of his soul, and he only
has a few hours to live. How would you express the gospel
to him? How would you express the gospel? How would you express the truth
of God's salvation? Where would you begin? At what
Scripture would you take them? How would you begin to witness
of what God has done for you? How? Friends, I believe that every
opportunity to witness should be viewed as our last opportunity. Today, this may be my last message
that I ever preach, and this may be the last message you ever
hear. So every time I preach, I preach
to dying men as a dying man. I don't know. You may have 24
hours to live. And I may have this one opportunity,
this one time to witness to every one of you today. And how would
I do that? How do I go about that? And how
would you? What if his dying message was
the last message that you delivered to him? What if your witness
was the only witness he had to go out into eternity with? What would he go out with? What would that man stand before
God with? Well, I know Bob Rice told me
this. Would that be enough? Would your witness be true? Would
you be able to stand before Christ and honestly contend that your
witness was the truth? What would your witness be and
where would you begin to declare it? Now imagine, if you will,
this man. I told you to imagine a man who
has 24 hours to live. And now imagine this man is a
good man. This man is an elder man. This
man is an older man. He's lived a good life. He's
been a moral man. He's a good, sound, respectable
gentleman. A deacon of his church. A teacher
of Sunday school. All of his life, he's done nothing
but good for the community. He's been a powerful man, a rich
man. And this man is well respected
by many people. How would you witness to him? How would you witness to that
man about his eternal soul? And now suppose that this man
is not a moral man. Suppose this man is on death
row. This man is a murderer. He has
spent all of his life. He is not respectable. He's been
a horrible father to his children. He's been a man that has been
full of disdain and hatred and violence in his heart. He's on
death row and he's committed murder and he's guilty of it.
And this man comes to you. You are brought before this man.
He says, what do I do? I may face an eternity and I
don't know what to do. What should I expect? How would
you witness to him? How would you witness to this
man? Would you witness to the good
man differently than you witness to the immoral man? Would your
witness be different? False religion tells us that
our witness should be different. False religion tells us that
our witness should comfort the moral man, should give him encouragement
and strength to look back on his life and say, look at all
the good things you've done. False religion says, hey, trust
in those good things. Trust in that you've been a good
father, that you've been a good senator, that you've been a good
rich man, that you've been a good faithful dad to your children.
Trust in that. That's what false religion will
tell him. While the other man, they'll say, hey, you need to
believe in Jesus. You need to hurry up. You need
to make a decision for Jesus today. You need to do it now. You're fixing to die. You need
to make a decision. You need to try to clean up what's
left of your life. The last few hours, you need
to do some good things. Well, friends, both of these
witnesses are false. Because they're basing salvation
on what the moral man has done and what the sinner has to do. That's why they're false. They're
basing it on something that these men must do in order to please
God. They judge. or witness that these
men are based on their background, their education, their success,
their morality, instead of telling them, thus saith the Lord. What you should witness to both
of these men is thus saith the Lord, not what you think. Not
your opinion about their lifestyle or how they lived. It's not up
to you or to me to judge them. It is in the hands of God to
judge them. We must declare simply, plainly,
the gospel of Jesus Christ to them. That's what we're to do.
Thus saith the Lord. Without a thus saith the Lord,
we have no authority. We have no authority to talk
to any of them. If you don't have anything that the Lord says,
then you shouldn't speak at all. Friends, to the natural mind,
is it not our inclination by nature to lean more toward the
moral man than the wicked, evil man? Is it not our natural condition
to try to bring some kind of comfort to that moral man while
we must deride the sinner? Isn't that our natural inclination?
Yes, it is. But friends, God doesn't look
on the outside, does He? God looks on our hearts. He told Samuel when he stood
before David and Jesse's sons, when he came to the first one,
Samuel said, oh, surely this is Him. Look at this guy. He's
handsome. He's tall. He's muscular. This guy surely fits the profile
of a king. And God says, I've rejected Him.
Don't look on the outside. I look on the heart. I look on
the heart. False witnesses will tell you
to look on the outside, the countenance, the stature, the appearance of
a man. They suppose that God will judge
based on appearances and actions of men. But God sees past all
that and He looks directly to the motives and intents and thoughts
of the heart. The truth of the matter is when
we witness to both of these men, we should witness the same message. The same message. If I were to
preach to the most immoral man that ever lived, or I was to
preach to the most religious man that ever lived, I should
preach to them both the same message. The same message. There's only one gospel. There's
only one food for the souls of men. There's only one way of
eternal life, and that is through the gospel of Jesus Christ. Friends,
there is no other way. This is the means God has chosen,
is the foolishness of preaching, what the world calls foolishness.
Now, if you were to witness to these men, where should you take
them? I tell you, the best passage
of Scripture in all the Bible to take someone is Romans chapter
3. Romans chapter 3 is the most
succinct, the most clear definition of the Gospel as to be found
anywhere in Scripture. It is the whole counsel of God
in one chapter. It is a wonderful passage to
take them. And so that's where I'm taking
you this morning, Romans chapter 3. Now, I want to give us three
things, three easy ways to remember what we're to witness and how
we're to witness to the lost. Lump, lead, and leave. To lump, lead, and leave. And I'll explain each one of
these. To lump. Remember the Scripture says in
Romans chapter 9 that out of the same what? Lump. The same
lump of clay, God took some that He would redeem for Himself.
And others He left. But friends, if we're to ever
preach the gospel, we must, like Paul, break down all walls and
barriers that separate men. You see, this moral man, he would
use his morality to separate himself from that evil man. And see, the evil man, even though
he's the most vilest of men, he'll try to find someone even
more vile than himself to separate himself from them. Isn't that
what they do? How many guilty prisoners do
we have? Ask them. Ask them if they're guilty, and
you'll find a lot of them. I'm not guilty. It was my lawyer
that messed me around. It's not them. And so they look
for somebody else who's worse than them. So in order to get
past that, the gospel breaks down all barriers of men. All classes, all types, moral,
immoral, irreligious, religious, rich, poor, it doesn't matter.
The gospel lumps them all together in one place. Now the Jews, believe
that they were closer to God and more acceptable to God because
they were children of Abraham. Remember when they talked to
Jesus, they said, we be Abraham's seed. We be Abraham's seed. They were proud of being Jews.
They thought that being a Jew separated them from everyone
else. And they rested in the Mosaic
law. And because they knew God, they
knew His will, they knew and approved of the Scriptures, they
thought themselves better. But friends, many people are like these moral
Jews. They believe in God. They believe
the Bible. They believe if they do their
best and try to obey the law of God as best they can, that
God will accept them. That is the most prevalent religion
in all the world. Do you know that? That is the
most prevalent religion in all the world, that if they just
do their best, God will accept them. All the while, they're looking
down at other men who have not attained to such moral heights
as they have. And chapter 3 and verse 1, look
at this. Paul says, then, what advantage has a Jew? What advantage
does a Jew have? What profit is in circumcision?
Paul says, much in every way, chiefly because they are committed
to them the oracles of God. Let me ask you this. What advantage
does the moral man who sits in church every week have over the
evil man? Much. Much. Why? Because he hears the gospel,
while the other man doesn't. Can we not all see and agree
that a moral life is more comfortable than a wretched, sinful life?
Isn't that more comfortable for men? Isn't that more respectable
and more friendly to have a moral man as opposed to one who's immoral? So there's advantages, but get
this, They're all temporal advantages. They're all advantages that vanish
away at death. When death comes, that moral
man and that evil man, they will both stand before God and God
will not care about their morality or immorality. God will lump
them all together. All together. No man will ever be accepted
by God based on his morality or religion or good works. Look
at verse 4. God forbid, yea, God be true,
but every man a liar. Every man knows that no murderer,
whoremonger, or adulterer, or thief shall enter in the kingdom
of heaven. Now you know that. And I'll tell
you what, a drunkard knows that. An adulterer knows that. They
know that judgment is coming. They know it. And they will not enter heaven
based on their immorality and irreligious works. Let me ask you this, is God's
Word still true? Paul said, let God be true and
every man a liar. Let God be true and every man
a liar. Believer, let us start with our witness by lumping all
under one banner. All men under one God, who will
judge all men, who is holy and righteous. Let us not begin with
the existence of God or the judgment of God, because all men know
this. Where do we begin? With the person of God. Where
does God begin His Word? How does God begin the Bible?
In the beginning, God. He doesn't explain Himself. He
doesn't prove His existence. He doesn't do anything but express
who He is. He said, in the beginning, God.
There was God, who always was. We don't prove the existence
of God to a dying man. That's foolishness. Why else is He asking? He knows
there's a God. We don't prove that. What we
do show them is who God is. He is holy. You begin with God. I'll tell you this, no man will
know their sinful state unless they know who God is. Isn't that
right? Unless they know the absolute
perfections of God, they will never know their own selves to
be sinners. You must know that God is holy
and righteous and strict, and when they breathe their last,
they'll stand before a strict, absolute, holy God who will not
pardon them or clear their guilt by any means but a blood sacrifice. Scripture says our God is a consuming
fire. That's what God says about Himself.
God says, I will by no means clear the guilty. That's what
God says about Himself. So when you die, you will stand
before this God. You will, and I will, and everybody
else. God is righteous and will by
no means clear the guilty. He will judge men and strict
justice. So where does that put all men? Where does that leave
them? In the same lump. Look at this
in verse 9. What then? Are we better than
they? Is the moral man better than
the Gentile pagan? No. In no way. For we have before proved Jews
and Gentiles that they are all under sin. All under sin. All under sin. Let us witness
to the murderer and the moral man, the rich, the poor, the
righteous, the unrighteous. We witness to everybody. All
men by nature are under sin and under a God who must and will
punish all sin. Pay close attention and read
verse 11. This is God's description. It
doesn't matter what I think about the man. It doesn't matter what
you think about the man. What does God say about the man?
There is none that understandeth. Yeah, but this guy is an educated
guy. God says he doesn't understand. There's none that seeketh after
God. Oh, but I sought after God all my life. No, you didn't.
No, you didn't. Why? How can I know that? God
said it. God said it. They're all gone
out of the way. They are all together become
unprofitable. There's none that doeth good.
No, not one. Now, is that not clear? Is that
not plain speech? My son and my daughter are no
good in the eyes of God. They're precious to me. They're
my children. But I'll tell you this, they
will not profit God anyway. Can you profit God? Is there
anything that we could add to God? Friends, we have nothing
but sin. How then can we add anything
to God who is holy? We don't profit Him anything.
Friends, we are full of sin, deceit, we don't know the way
of peace, and the fear of God is not in the eyes of men. Have
you not seen that in our generation, that there's no fear of God?
There's no reverence of God's things, of God's worship. There's no reverence anymore.
Have no fear. Have no fear. And friends, there is none righteous,
no, not one. What does God demand? Righteousness. What are we? Unrighteous. And that's every one of us by
nature. Not one escapes it. We are all
lumped together in the same lump. I like the gospel because the
gospel is the great leveler of men. I watched one time as they
were smoothing out some concrete one time, and they had this machine
that just wiped all that out and leveled it out. It leveled
everybody. Do you understand that all men
are the same before God by nature? That no one's different? No one's
different? Why then should we witness differently
to anyone? We should begin with God, and
by seeing God, we should see who we are. Second of all, we
are to lead. Now, it's clear that we all stand
on an equal field as sinners before God. How then may we lead them to
the gospel of Jesus Christ? Look at verse 21, "...but now."
Paul has laid out a black cloth, a black cloth of sin, and now
he is putting the diamond of God's gospel right in the center
of that cloth, so it shines the brightest. "...but now the righteousness
of God without the law is manifest." being witnessed by the Law and
the Prophets, even the righteousness of God, which is by the faithfulness
of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe, there
is no difference." Friends, there being no difference
between all men, because we've all sinned and missed God's glory
and perfection, there is no difference here as to how sinners are saved. There's no difference. There's
no difference. There was no difference, Gil,
in how you were saved and how I was saved. Was there? No difference. We may have had
a different experience, but friends, we had the same gospel. We heard
the same gospel. We believe the same Savior. We
believe the same Savior. There's only one. And we must
then lead them to the gospel of Jesus Christ. that only by
the imputed righteousness of God, which is by Christ and given
through faith in Him." That's what we preach. This is the gospel of God. But now, the righteousness of
God without the law. The righteousness of God without
the law. is manifest. God in great grace
purposed to save sinners. Purposed to save sinners. God
in great grace sent His Son, made in the likeness of sinful
flesh, and for sin He obtained a righteousness, and by His own
death He died for the sins of His people. It's by His faithfulness. Look at that in our verse. And
I want you to see this. It's very important that the righteousness
of God is by the faith of Jesus Christ. Now, that can be translated
both faith and faithfulness. But I see them both as the same,
don't you? How can you be faithful without faith? You can't. He was faithful to God. He was faithful to God. Where
we failed to be faithful, He was faithful. Where we failed
to honor God's law, He was faithful to honor God's law. And where
we failed in that we could not bear His wrath for our sins,
Jesus Christ bear the wrath of God for us in our stead. That's the gospel. That's the
gospel. It's centered around the righteousness
of God. Without the righteousness of
God, none of us can go to heaven. None of us will stand before
God. And how then can we have this righteousness? It was obtained
only by the faithfulness of Christ. Forget your morality. Forget
your immorality. It is only Christ. Only Christ
who has obtained righteousness. And therefore, we lead all men
to Christ. We point all men to Christ. He's
God's only salvation. There is no other. There is no
other. But now the righteousness of
God is obtained. Where? Where can I find it? In
Jesus Christ. I point you to Christ. That's
what witnessing is. It's just pointing to Christ.
It's getting men off of what they think and pointing them
to what God says. It's about Christ. Everything
is about Him. He obtained the righteousness
for our souls. God, imagine this, that God took
Him and shut up all of our sins in His bosom. And God being righteous could
not do anything but punish His own Son. Friends, if you look at the cross
and you can't see sin and the holiness of God, I'm sorry for
you, because that's where its greatest display is. If God loved
His Son from all eternity and killed Him when He found sin
on Him, what will He do with us? What will He do with us? But friends, I have good news
that Jesus Christ has obtained righteousness. He's obtained
mercy. Isaiah 53 said, It pleased the
Lord to bruise him. He hath put him to grief. When
thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed
and prolong his days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper
in his hand. He shall seal the travail of
his soul and be what? Satisfied. God was satisfied. Where? In Christ. In Christ. God was satisfied. His justice was completely and
utterly satisfied with His payment for sin. Why then would any man
go to God with his own righteousness? Isn't that foolish? It's foolish
for a man to go to God with his own righteousness. Look what
I did, God! My God, I was really religious!
I was really good! What does God say? There's none
that doeth good, no, not one. There's none that understandeth.
There's none that seeketh after God. They're altogether unprofitable.
You're unprofitable servant. And He cast him out into outer
darkness. Well, then how can we obtain
this? How is it possible to obtain this righteousness? Look at our
text. Look at verse 22. It said, "...even the righteousness
of God, which is by the faith of Jesus Christ, not by our own
works, but by His works, unto all and upon all, that believe." Faith in Christ. This is how
righteousness is recognized and received. By faith. When we witness to men, we must
point them to Christ, but we must also lead them to the point
to where they have to make some decision here. We lead them to
that point. That's all the gospel does. Does
not the gospel say, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ? He that
believeth and is baptized shall be saved, and he that believeth
not shall be damned. There it is. Will you believe? Or will you not? Friends, I do believe in the
absolute sovereignty of God, there's no question. I know this,
every time I witness the gospel, if God doesn't do something for
that man, there's nothing I can do. I know that. I know this,
that if God doesn't quicken his soul and give him faith, he cannot
come to God. I know that. I know that. But I'll tell you this, it is
just as sure that every man is responsible to believe. It is just as sure that if I'm
to witness of men, friends, I must have a love for their souls and desire them to come to the
knowledge of Christ. I think that many in our day
have come to... We've seen the false religion
of trying to corner men into some decision and making some
profession of faith that's not real. I know that we've rejected
that and we've come so far the opposite way that we've not tried
to persuade men. The Gospel says we are to beseech
men. We are to beseech men to be saved. We are to persuade men. We are
to reason with men. We are to desire their souls
to be saved every time we witness. Every time we witness. And when
we come to the point of the gospel, when we come to the end, we've
shown them their sin, we've shown them who God is, and we've pointed
them to Christ. Friends, it's that time that
we must do the third thing, leave. Leave. You lump them. You lead them. Then you leave
them. Leave them. I'll explain what
that means. As a witness of Christ, we must
have a love for men's souls. Do you have a love for men's
souls? If you don't, you should. You realize that the pastor is
not the only one that's supposed to have love for men's souls.
I love men's souls. I want men to come. I want men
to believe. But so should you. So should
you. We should love men's souls and
desire them to come. But I'll tell you, false religion
has set up men to be priests, to intercede between them and
Christ. That's what false religion has
done. They've set up man to say, well, if you want to come to
Christ, you've got to come through me as I deliver the sacraments
to you. They say, hey, here's the holy
sacraments. I will give them to you, and
you can be saved then. The Baptists have been declaring
this for the last century, as if you must come to the preacher. You must come to the preacher
in order to be saved. Friends, don't come to me. And
when I witness the men, I don't want them to come to Me. I can't
do anything for them. And neither can any other man.
Neither can any other man. God is sovereign in His matter of salvation. Even though we love them and
want them to be saved, we can't save them. That's God's business. Leave it alone. I tell you, when
you witness to men, leave them alone to be with God. Don't keep trying to pressure
or to trick men into believing. Tell them and leave them alone. You know, it wasn't until Jacob
was left alone that the Lord Jesus wrestled with him. And it's not until we leave men
alone that God will take and use our witness. But He will
not honor us. He will not exalt our witness. Salvation is of the Lord. Leave them to the Lord to find
mercy. They must come to Christ and
not to the preacher. They must come to Christ and
not religion. They must believe on Christ,
not any baptism or sacraments. They must come to Christ. And
it's only the Spirit of God that can bring a man to Christ. We
can't do that. We can't do that. I pray that God would give us
opportunity to witness. I pray that we would have a heart
seeking opportunity. It's good to seek opportunity,
isn't it? It's good to listen, to pay attention
to the men around us. And when they have questions,
when they ask us questions of the hope that's in us, how do
you know? How are you so sure about what
you believe? The door opens. Lump them, lead
them, and leave them alone. All have sinned and come short
of the glory of God. But now the righteousness of
God without the law is manifest, even the righteousness of God
which is by the faithfulness of Christ unto all that believe." And then leave God to do His
own business. And I tell you, I promise you,
by the Word of God, our witness will be a successful witness. Whether they believe or not,
Is not our witness successful? Bob, you were talking to me about
the man that you had desired to witness to, and he wouldn't
let you witness. He kept talking. Well, you know what? Your witness
is accepted. That man had no interest. He
had no desire. And God shut the door. End of
story. Seek opportunity to witness.
and point them to Christ. He's our only hope. And I have
a good hope, don't you? I have a good hope. And I pray
that other men see that. Let's stand. We'll be dismissed
in prayer.