Good evening, everyone. Turn
with me in your Bibles, please, to Romans chapter 3. The book
of Romans, chapter 3. The book of Romans, chapter 3.
We'll begin with verse 1. and read almost the entire chapter. Romans chapter 3 verse 1. What advantage then hath the
Jew, or what profit is there of circumcision? Much every way,
cheaply, because that unto them were committed the oracles of
God. For what if some did not believe?
Shall their unbelief make the faith of God without effect?
God forbid. Yea, let God be true, and every
man a liar, as it is written, that thou mightest be justified
in thy sayings, and mightest overcome when thou art judged.
But if our unrighteousness commend the righteousness of God, what
shall we say? Is God unrighteous, who taketh
vengeance? I speak as a man. God forbid,
for then how shall God judge the world? For if the truth of
God hath more abounded through my lie unto his glory, why yet
am I also judged as a sinner? And not rather, as we be slanderously
reported, and as some affirm that we say, let us do evil that
good may come, whose damnation is just. What then? Are we better
than they? No, in no wise, for we have before
proved both Jews and Gentiles that they are all under sin. As it is written, there is none
righteous, no, not one. 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. Their throat is an open sepulcher.
With their tongues they have 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 we know that
what things soever the law saith, it saith to them that are under
the law, that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world
may become guilty before God. Therefore, by the deeds of the
law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight, for by the law
is the knowledge of sin. But now the righteousness of
God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and
the prophets, even the righteousness of God, which is by faith of
Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe, for there
is no difference. for all have sinned and come
short of the glory of God, being justified freely by His grace
through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God has
set forth to be a propitiation through faith in His blood, to
declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are
passed through the forbearance of God. To declare, I say, at
this time his righteousness that he might be just and the justifier
of him which believeth in Jesus. Where is boasting then? It is
excluded. By what law? Of works? Nay, but
by the law of faith. Therefore, we conclude that a
man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law. You'll
turn back to verse 4. This is where I'll get my subject
tonight, in verse 4. He says, God forbid, and then
he says, yea, let God be true, but every man a liar. Let God be true and every man
a liar. Pilate asked the Lord Jesus who
was standing before him in judgment, what is truth? He knows now. Truth was standing, as a matter
of fact, right in front of him. And one of these days Pilate
is going to stand before the judgment seat of Christ and the truth will be sitting
there looking at him he did not know the truth let God be true
and every man a liar Heavenly Father I pray that you will help
us as we study tonight may the grace of God be upon
each one of us You said you'd give more grace. And oh Lord,
we pray for it to be your will, your pleasure. Pour out your
grace upon us. Lord, I need you tonight. I feel
so inadequate with the message tonight. I'll need your help. I need I've needed your help
in the study. I need your help tonight as I
deliver it. May the saints be edified. But
more than that, may Jesus Christ, our Lord, be glorified. We pray for each one who's here
that you would meet the need of each one. And those that could
not be with us, we pray, Father, that you would be their comfort
as well. And tonight, we want to give
you honor, praise, and glory for all that you do. We know
that without you, we can do nothing. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. When our Lord Jesus was praying
in the real Lord's Prayer, John chapter 17, as He was speaking
to the Father, He said, Thy word is truth. Thy word is truth. Our Lord Jesus said, ye shall
know the truth, and the truth will make you free. The converse of that is true.
If you're not free, you don't know the truth. Because the truth
of God will make a man free. Some years ago, when I was in
Clifton Forge, Virginia, One of the ladies in the church
was a teller at the bank. And I was talking about counterfeit
things. And I asked her, I said, how
do you find a counterfeit that comes past you through the window
there? And I said, It just looks funny
or feels funny, what is it? She said, no, we are taught the
real thing. We study the real bill. We study its texture. We study
its color. We study its artwork. We study everything about those
bills. And when we study the real bill,
The test is, they will give us five bills at the end of the
day. They'll slip them by us to see if we can detect which
ones are counterfeit. And she said, for the most part,
everybody finds the counterfeit just like that. Because they've
studied the truth. They got to the truth. They got
to know everything that they could know at that time about
that particular bill. And the best way to detect a
lie, a counterfeit, is to know what's real. Paul said, think on these things,
whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest. Think on these
things. Look to what is really true.
You know, when you know what is true, when you know the truth,
and by the way, the truth is Jesus Christ himself. If I haven't
made that point clear. The truth is Jesus Christ himself. He is the true and the living
way. He is the way, the truth, and
the light. He is the one who is full of
grace and truth. When we see Him, when He reveals
Himself to us, then we can detect the counterfeits. And I'll tell
you, there's a lot of them around here. There's a lot of counterfeits
around here. Even our Lord said, some will
say, lo, here is Christ, or lo, there is Christ. He said, don't
believe them. He said there will be many false
Christs arise in the latter days. Don't believe them. You see,
this is how we detect false religion. When we know the truth. And the
truth, that truth, that has made us free. We detect our own inabilities
when we know the truth. We say with Paul, O wretched
man that I am, who shall deliver me from this body of death? Our
Lord said, without me you could do nothing. Without him, there is no ability
that man has to approach our sovereign God. Paul said to Timothy, study to
show thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to
be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. You see, we
detect these lies about God. All men are liars. As a matter
of fact, the psalmist David said, I said in my haste, all men are
liars. If you look up the word haste,
you'll find that it's tremble. I said in my trembling, all men
are liars. Why they go astray from the womb,
speaking lies, David said. will detect these lies. Some
say it was a great prophet. I had two so-called missionaries
come to my door today. They wanted to hand me their
literature and such, and I said, no, I don't want that. I said,
what you have there is a lie. No, no, this is the truth. I
said, no sir, what you have there is the lie. It's the lie of the
devil. And you know what those guys
believe? They believe that Jesus, when
he was born, grew up and became God. Well, I can show you in
scripture, and I will here in just a little bit, that he is
God of very God. There are some saying that he
was a great prophet, a great man, a wonderful example. He
asked his disciples, whom do you say that I am? Old Peter,
who usually got his foot in his mouth, he didn't this time. He
said, thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. Flesh
and blood didn't reveal that to him, only the Father. Some say, some make their images
of him. They think that he's all together
like one of us. We can manipulate him. We can
reject him. We can do all kinds of things.
We can let him in if we want to. They say, some of them say
that, honest. To my shame, I said it too years
ago. He's knocking at your door. All
you have to do is open that door and he'll come on in. Hogwash. That's not true. That's not true. He's not altogether like us. We're altogether sinners. He's
altogether holy. We're unrighteous. He's all righteousness. He is pure. I am impure. Some say he loves everybody.
Well now that's an everlasting love that he has and he loves
to the end. Then why are people still going
to hell? He doesn't love everybody. As
a matter of fact, he said that Esau, he hated. He raised up Pharaoh for this
very thing to show his power in him and killed Pharaoh in
the Red Sea. Some say redemption is for all. Redemption is for God's people.
Redemption is for the people He chose in eternity past. That He came to this earth for.
He died for them. He gave His life for them. He
shed His blood for them. He redeemed them. And they're forgiven. Some say the Holy Spirit calls
every man in the world to repentance. He calls His chosen, He calls
His elect to repentance. When you read 1 Peter 1, He's
talking about the elect. And when you get over to 2 Peter
3, where repentance is mentioned there, for all, it's for all
His elect. All His chosen ones. Some say
that they're good enough. I used to have a book in my library. I threw it away a long time ago,
even before the Lord delivered me. The book's title was, I'm
Okay, You're Okay. And it was written by Thomas
Harris. I'm okay, you're okay. I'm good enough. I've heard that
before. And I've heard this before. Well,
if those people down there at the church are going to heaven,
I'm just as good as they are. Well, you know what? You're right.
You're just as good as they are. And there's none good. No, not
one. I can do enough things to get
my way to heaven. I can do enough things to make
the Lord pay attention to me. I can do enough things that my
good will outweigh my bad. But the problem is this. You got all that bad, then take
a look at your good. All my righteousnesses are as
filthy rags. Put that over on that side of
the balance too. As the pastor says, you're gone, Jesse. Some depend on man's free will. They think man has a free will. We can do whatever we want to
do and when we want him, we can have him. Salvation depends upon
our acceptance of him. They make themselves gods over
our God. We will decide. I like what Scott Richardson
said one time. I listened to some of his cassettes
from years ago, and he was talking about the free will of man, and
he said, yeah, you've got free will just like a snake, just
like a frog in a snake's belly. He wants to get out, and he'll
struggle to get out. He'll do everything he can to
get out. His free will is to get out of there, but he's in
the snake's belly, and that's where he'll stay. We're in this
old nature. We want to get out, we struggle
to get out, but we can't do anything about it. We're in the belly of this old
sinful nature. But you know what the Lord says?
Through David He says, Thy people shall be willing in the day of
His power. Some think that they've got to
add works to grace. The only way to get to heaven
is to be holy. You've got to do a lot of things. You've got
to do this and this and this and this. Don't do this. Don't
do this. And for heaven's sakes, don't do that. And then they've
got their laws and bylaws and they all have to go by all these
things. When the Lord says, it's grace. Free grace. Sovereign, free grace. It doesn't matter what man thinks
about the things of God. All men are liars. What does
God say? That's the important thing. John in Revelation was told by
the Lord, you don't add to this, you don't take away from this
Word of God. You'll add to yourself problems,
you'll take away things that you really wanted to have. Don't
add, don't take away. This is the Word of God. And we should desire it as sincere
as babes. We should desire it as babes
desire sincere milk, the Bible says. That's how we should do
it. Jesus Christ is the only truth
there is. I don't care what subject you
go to. He's the only truth there is. There's no other truth out
there. Turn with me to John chapter
1. John chapter 1. John chapter 1 verse 1, in the
beginning was the Word, notice it's capitalized, and the Word
was with God, and the Word was God. Now look at verse 14, and
the Word became flesh. and dwelt among us. And we beheld
His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,
full of grace and truth. He is the living Word. He's the one who gave the Word. He's the one who is the Word. And if we're going to know anything
about God's Word, the Bible, which is His Word, We're going
to have to know Him. And He's going to have to be
revealed to us before that could even happen. I'll show you that
later on. I just have a few points of remark
to make about this introduction I've given you. Jesus Christ
is the only way a man may approach the sovereign God. He's the only way. Paul said to Timothy, he's dwelling
in a light which no man can approach unto. But thank the Lord, David
said in Psalm 65 verse 4, blessed is the man whom thou choosest
and calls us to approach unto thee. We can't get there on our own.
There's no way. We're unable to do anything about
who we are. How in the world are we going
to do anything else? The only way I can approach a thrice holy
God is in truth. And the truth is Jesus Christ.
And all men are liars. I must have Jesus Christ who
is the truth. The only way I can approach a
thrice holy God is in righteousness. And all my righteousnesses are
as filthy rags. I must have His righteousness. The only way I can approach a
thrice holy God is in holiness. And my sin has separated me from
God. The word holiness means separation. If God sanctifies you, that's
holy, holifies you, He sets you apart for Himself. But because of my sin, I'm set
apart from God, that He will not even hear me. According to
Isaiah, I believe it's chapter 59. The only way I can approach a
thrice holy God is in perfection. And I'm here to tell you, I am
not perfect. There may be some of you, but I'm not. Now, in
Jesus Christ, I am in the truth. I am in His righteousness. I
am in His holiness. I am perfected by Him. My only approach to God is Jesus
Christ, my Savior. Christ is my sinless perfection. I must have someone to approach
God for me. Since He is in a light that no
man can approach unto, I must have someone approach for me.
That's the only conclusion I can come to. My only access, Jesus
said, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man cometh unto
the Father but by me. My only acceptance, Paul said
that we are made, are accepted in the beloved, Jesus Christ. I must have someone approach
for me. Any other approach is a lie.
Remember in A.F. and A.B.U., back in the Old Testament,
the sons of Aaron? The fire of the temple went out.
The fire of the tabernacle went out. They built their own little
fire and brought it into the tabernacle. They did their own
thing. They figured it was good enough.
What I do is good enough. And God killed them both. Fire
leaped out of that altar and killed them both. It only ends in destruction.
Let God be true. and every man a liar. Jesus Christ
is my only approach to the Sovereign God. Jesus Christ is the only
way a man can approach the Word of God. We must approach it in
truth. It is the word of truth. Paul
said it. We're rightly dividing the word
of truth. He said, in whom he also trusted
after he heard the word of truth. Of his own will, James says,
begat he us with the word of truth. Jesus Christ is the only
way I may approach the Word of God. He is the Word of God. He's the Word of God personified. He is the living Word. And that makes this book, His
Word, a living Word. I can prove it to you here, and
I will in just a moment. A living Let's learn some things
about the Word of God. Turn with me to 2 Timothy chapter
3. 2 Timothy chapter 3. Jesus Christ is the only way
we can approach our Sovereign God. Jesus Christ is the only
way to approach the Word of God. 2 Timothy chapter 3. and verse 16 2nd Timothy chapter 3 verse 16
all scripture is given by inspiration of God the word inspiration in
the original language can be translated breathe from God the
breath of God God breathed All Scripture is given by inspiration
of God and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction,
for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be perfect,
perfectly furnished unto all good works." It's inspired. It's God-breed. Some 40 writers over Many thousands of years. I can't
remember the number of them. Over many thousands of years.
All wrote the same thing. They wrote about Christ. They
wrote about our Lord. Hebrews chapter 4. Just a couple
few pages to your right. Hebrews chapter 4. And verse 12. For the word of
God is quick. The word quick means alive. The word of God is quick and
powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even
to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit and of the joints
and marrow and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of
the heart. Wow. This book right here. which is
the Word of our Lord, which is His Word, which is Him speaking,
which is He. No wonder it's the discerner
of the thoughts and intents of the heart. It's quick! It's alive! And it's powerful! Powerful! He speaks and it's done! Isn't
that what the psalmist David said? Psalm 33? He spoke the
world into existence. He speaks and it's done. He has
such a power in his word that when he speaks, you can best
believe it's going to happen. Follow me! And what'd they do?
He spoke. They followed. Zacchaeus come down. What'd he
do? He comes skinning down that sycamore
tree. Lazarus come forth, and what
did he do? He came right out of that grave.
There's power in this word. It's forever settled. Psalm 119
verse 89, forever, O Lord, thy word is settled in heaven. It's settled. We have also a
more sure word of prophecy, Peter said. Isaiah said it will not
return unto the Lord void It's the engrafted word James chapter
1 Just the next book over from Hebrews James chapter 1 And verse 21 James chapter 1 verse 21 wherefore
lay apart all filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness and
receive with meekness the engrafted word which is able to save your
souls that's what Isaiah wrote about that's what Jeremiah wrote
about that's what the writer of Hebrews wrote about that the
word of God is written on the hearts and in the mind of God's
people. The engrafted word. John chapter
15 verse 3 says it's the cleansing word. John chapter 15 verse 3. As our Lord was speaking to his
disciples he says, Now ye are clean through the word which
I have spoken unto you. This Word will clean us up. I
need that cleansing, don't you? Oh, it's great, wonderful, amazing. Sunday morning, Sunday night,
Wednesday night services and how wonderful they make us to
feel as we're sitting in the service and as we're receiving
the Word of God, how good it is. But daily, daily, reading
the Scripture, letting God speak to you, asking God to speak to
you from what you're reading, tell you about his son every
day. It's the cleansing word. Jesus Christ is the only way
we can approach our sovereign God. Jesus Christ is the only
way to approach the Word of God. Jesus Christ is the only way
a man must approach free grace and mercy. Let God be true and
every man a liar. Moses said, let me see your glory.
And the Lord said, okay. But I'm going to hide you in
the cleft of the rock. I'm going to put you on the rock and then
I'm going to hide you in the cleft of the rock. My glory is
going to pass by and you're going to see and you're going to hear.
I will have compassion on whom I have compassion. I will have
mercy upon whom I will have mercy. And Paul repeats that in Romans
chapter 9. free grace and mercy only comes
from God. I will, God says. Man always
wants to put his word in and say, I will. God says, I will. Not you. I will. Do you remember the time
he spoke to you? Remember the time he revealed
himself to you? Remember that day? Oh, you didn't hear an audible
voice. You may have heard the preacher
preaching and it came to you. He revealed himself as the preacher
was preaching. Or after the message, as you
were thinking about it, God revealed himself to you, but it was God
who did it. I will. I will have compassion. I will have mercy. I will be
gracious. Jesus said, I give unto them
eternal life and they shall never perish. Jesus Christ is the only
way we can approach our sovereign God. Jesus Christ is the only
way we can approach the Word of God. Jesus Christ is the only
way a man must approach free grace and mercy. And Jesus Christ
is the only way I must approach my spiritual inability. we read it there in Romans chapter
3 there's none righteous no not
one let God be true and every man a liar there's not a righteous
person in yourself there's not a righteous person sitting here
or standing here none that understandeth let God be true and every man
a liar there's not one that can understand When I first heard
the gospel, I'm sitting right beside where Barbara is. When I first heard the gospel,
I said, what is that man talking about? And I had preached for
40 years in a free will church. I couldn't understand it. I came
the next night and I started taking notes. And I started taking
those notes home and those verses that the pastor gave. Started
taking those home and reading those verses. One night, several weeks later,
one night I called Peggy. We were still dating at the time.
One night I called her and I said, I found out something. She said,
what? I said, God's sovereign and I'm a sinner. That's all I needed to know. That's all I needed to know. God revealed that to me as I
heard the preaching of the word. There's none that understandeth
that God be true in every man a liar. None that seeketh after
God. Let God be true in every man
a liar. There's none that seeks after God. Or they seek after
some kind of a God. But not our Heavenly Father,
not the Lord Jesus Christ. There's none that doeth good.
No, not one. Let God be true in every man
a liar. None that doeth good. No, not
one. That's me. I must be born again.
I must be born from above. I must be regenerated by God
Himself. Or I have no hope. I must have
Jesus Christ. And I must have Him today and
tomorrow. To whom coming. I just keep on
coming. Don't you? I can't get enough. Somebody told me one time when
I first started here, I was coming to all the services at that time.
They said, well, you're coming an awful long ways. Why don't
you just skip Wednesday night? I said, I can't get enough. I
can't miss Wednesday night. I just can't get enough. I want
to hear more and more about my Lord. I want to hear more and
more about the gospel of free grace. We're not born of blood, nor
the will of flesh, nor the will of man, but we're born of God. That's how it happens. One more
thing I want to suggest to us this evening. The truth is, man will never
know these truths unless the Holy Spirit reveals it to him. Turn with me to Romans chapter
8. Romans chapter 8. And if that
is the only way it comes, my prayer is, O Lord, reveal
thyself to me. Reveal thyself to me. The Lord who is truth, and the
Lord who gave us truth, don't you think he wants us to know
him. Don't you think he wants us to
know him? Look here in Romans chapter 8
verse 1. There is therefore now no condemnation
to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh,
but after the spirit. For the law of the spirit of
life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and
death. For what the law could not do,
in that it was weak through the flesh, now notice this, God sending
his own Son, there's the covenant of free sovereign grace. God
sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, their substitution. He died in our place. He became
sin for us who knew no sin. And for sin, there's the judgment
of God. God judged sin in the Son of
God, Jesus Christ. Condemned sin in the flesh. There's our acceptance back to
verse one. There's their for now No condemnation
to them that are in Christ Jesus I'm perfect. I'm righteous. I'm
holy Sanctified if you want to use that word I'm redeemed I
Have everything he wants me to have and he wants me to have
it all because he said he's all in all We are made the righteousness
of God in Him. I want to turn to one last passage,
and I'm through for tonight. Galatians chapter 1. Galatians chapter 1. I said the truth is man will
never know the truth. or Jesus Christ unless the Spirit
of God revealed look what Paul said Galatians
1 verse 15 but when it pleased God who separated
me from my mother's womb and called me by his grace to reveal
his Son in me that I might preach him among
the heathen. Immediately I converted not with
flesh and blood. Let God be truth. Every man a
liar. I don't care what granny says.
I had a so-called godly granny. I don't care what that preacher
in the family that preaches nothing but works or free willism, I
don't care what he says. It's a lie. It's a lie. God's the only one
that's true. And the only way you're going
to know the truth It's for the Spirit of God to reveal Jesus
Christ to you and to me through His Word. And by the way, through
the preaching of His Word. Father, thank You for Your Word
tonight. Thank You for the instructions
You've given to us. Thank you, Lord Jesus, for who
you are, the truth. Thank you for the day that you
revealed yourself to us. It was not a picture on a wall, not a picture on a necklace or
bracelet, but it was the picture of you in your word that the
preacher preached. And Lord we pray for those who do not know this truth, reveal
yourself to them. Bless our pastor as he travels
and surely bring him home safely to us. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen. 257 in your hymnal. Let's stand and sing a couple
of stanzas of it in our dismissal. 257. His soul swing to trust in Jesus,
just to take Him at His word, just to rest upon His throne.