Now, so far in the first part
of this epistle, Paul, he began showing us how the Gentiles,
the heathen, those who are without religion, clearly show themselves
to be sinners. Then he showed how the Jew, the
religious person, they're equally sinful. And now he's bringing
it all together. He's going to deal with both
the Jew and Gentile together. The religious person and the
heathen. Those who are in religion, those who are in the flesh. They're
all. are sinners. None of them is righteous. And
none of them can be made righteous through our obedience to the
law, because no one, whether they're a heathen or a religious
person, we can't keep the law. And he's doing this, he's bringing
this to the conclusion. He's shutting us up to Christ
as the only way of righteousness, the only way of justification,
the only way of peace with God is in our Lord Jesus Christ.
No matter who we are or where we come from, we don't have any
hope but Him. So it begins in verse 9 here
of chapter 3. And he says, What then? Are we
better than they? No, and no wise. For we have
before proved, both Jew and Gentiles, that they are all under sin.
Now we saw this last week where he looked at the Jew, the religious
person. There's no better than the Gentile
heathen. Even the person like us, raised
under the sound of the gospel, someone who understands the gospel,
someone who's a good Calvinist. They're not better by nature
than the heathen, than the unreligious person who doesn't know anything
by nature. All men, no matter where you
find them, all men are born under the power of sin. Because all
men, regardless of their external circumstances, have Adam's sinful
nature. That's where the crux of it is.
We're all born equally guilty under the law. And we're all
equally guilty by our own deeds, too, by our own actions. As I've
heard all my life, we're sinners by birth. We're sinners by choice
and sinners by practice. All men are now. And while by
God's grace we are better off, we're not better by nature than
those who are evil. And we have a lot of external
privileges and advantages, no question about it. Every one
of us is holding God's Word in our lap. That's a blessing. This
is God's Word we're holding in our lap. Everybody doesn't have
that, but you do. We've got a pastor who week after
week preaches the gospel of Christ to us. But those external advantages
don't automatically translate to internal advantages. In order
to have an internal advantage, we've got to have God Almighty
do a work of grace in our hearts. I want to show you something
in Genesis chapter 6. Look back there at Genesis chapter 6. Where we begin reading about
Noah. In verse 5 of Genesis 6. And God saw that the wickedness
of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of
the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And it
repented the Lord that he had made man on the earth, and it
grieved him in 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 a creeping thing, and the fowls of the air. For
it repenteth me that I have made them. But Noah found grace in
the eyes of the Lord." Now you notice it doesn't say that every
man but Noah had thought the thoughts and imaginations of
his heart was only evil continually. He didn't say, well, but Noah
had kept up the right worship of the Lord, that Noah was seeking
the Lord, Noah was doing things better than everybody else. No.
Noah was the same as everybody else. What made the difference? But Noah found grace in the eyes
of the Lord. That's the difference. Who made
Noah different? God did. God's grace made the
difference. And we have a lot of advantages
that the world does not have, without question. But that doesn't
make us better by nature. Who made you different? What
do you have that God didn't give you? It's God's grace that made
the difference. Look over Psalm chapter 14. Or
see what was true in Noah's day. Just such a short time after
God created the man on the earth. Well, how was it in David's day?
Psalm 14, verse 2. The Lord looked down from heaven
upon the children of men to see if there were any that did understand
and seek God. They are all gone aside. They
are all together become filthy. There is none that doeth good,
no, not one. Have all the workers of iniquity
no knowledge, who eat up my people as they eat bread? And call not
upon the Lord. That's how it was in Noah's day.
That's how it was in David's day. That's how it was in the
Apostle Paul's day. And that's how it is today, in
our day, in 2008. Because men's nature, the nature
of man, does not change. It never will change. And outwardly,
the religious person may appear better to the general public,
but the only reason for that is they cleaned up the outside,
made it look good, look better on the outside, but the inside
is the same. No matter who we are, we're all
born under sin. There's none better than another
by nature. Look at verse 10, back in our text. As it's written,
there's none righteous. No, not one. This is the sum
of everything scripture teaches about human nature. There's none
righteous. No, not one, Paul says. There's
not even one. If there was even one, the all-seeing
eye of God would find him, but there's not even one. Now we
know God's holy. He demands perfection, perfect
righteousness, perfect holiness, and anything other than perfection
will be damned. 99.9% is not good enough. Savannah, we got a report card
in the mail this week. She got a 99 in one of her classes,
you know. She got 107 other ones. I always
got to give her a hard time. I said, why'd she get a 99 in
this one for me? Come on, what's the deal? She
just looks at me, you know. Well, 99.9%? Thrills me to death. But to God, that's not good enough. It has to be perfection and anything
outside of perfection will be cast from His presence. And no
man has a righteousness that even comes close to perfection.
I mean, there's no point in us even talking about 99.9% because
all of us are zero. No righteousness whatsoever.
Just zero. Scripture defines not just The
bad things that we do, but our righteousness, the good things
as filthy rags, is offensive to God because He's holy. And
the reason that our righteousness, the best that we do, is filthy
rags, is because of the nature we're born with. It's totally
depraved. It's totally sinful. It's the
complete opposite of God. Now, that's not the way God made
man. God made man upright. He created Adam in his own likeness. But Adam rebelled. He sinned
against God, and he fell. And when Adam fell, he lost that
likeness of God. He didn't retain any of that
likeness of God. And through generations, all
Adam could pass on was his sinful nature. We haven't retained any
of the likeness of God either. We've got Adam's sinful, rebellious
nature. David said we're conceived in
iniquity. We're conceived in sin and shaped
in iniquity. Well, then there can't be any
righteousness in us. If that's the way we're conceived, that's
the way we're shapen. It's not just that there's some
righteousness in us, but it's not enough. There's no righteousness
in us. And if we're ever going to have
righteousness, if we're ever going to be made righteous, we've
got to be born again from above. In our first birth, we received
the nature of our Father. When I was born, I received the
nature of my Father, a sinful nature. But when we're born from
above, we receive the nature of our Heavenly Father. We're
given the righteousness of Christ in the new birth. And the only
way a man is ever going to be made righteous is to be made
righteous in Christ, because there cannot be any righteousness
found in us. Now in these next verses, Paul
is going to show, give us a description of human nature. And this is
the nature now that's found in all of us. This is the nature
every one of us was born with, both Jew and Gentile, religious
and heathen person. It's the nature even the believers
still carry around with us. It's the nature we'll carry around
with us until we put it in the ground. Look what he says in
verse 11. There's none that understand
it. There's none that seeketh after God. Now God's given a
natural man. an amazing mind to understand
a lot of things. The way men understand about
science, math, history. The way men understand how to
build things and they understand things about medicine, the diseases
they can cure. Ron, they got this down to such
a science. They understand so much about
prostate cancer because God's given man an amazing capacity
to understand natural things. But man doesn't have any understanding
of spiritual things. None whatsoever. By nature we
don't know anything about God. We don't have any understanding
about who we are by nature. We don't have the slightest understanding
that the only way of salvation is found in the Lord Jesus Christ.
The natural man is alive physically, mentally, emotionally, but they're
dead. That's why we don't have any
spiritual understanding, because we're dead spiritually. Look
at 1 Corinthians 2. 1 Corinthians 2 verse 14. But 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. We don't have any spiritual discernment
because we're spiritually dead. We don't see any spiritual truths. We don't see the true condition
that we're in by nature because we're blind spiritually. And
because men don't understand who God is, because they don't
understand their need of Christ, they don't seek after God. They
seek after more understanding of medicine. They seek after
more understanding of science and math and the universe and
these things because they understand their need to know more of those
things. They understand their lacking. Their knowledge is not
complete of those things, so they seek after those things.
But when a person doesn't seek after God, it's because they
don't see their need of Him. They don't see that they're incomplete
without Him. They don't see themselves as
spiritually lacking, so they don't seek after God. And this
is not just the heathen now. This is the religious person
too. The heathen, they go about, you know, what it is they do,
and they never give any thought to God. They're heathen, they're
unfaithful, they never give any thought to Him. But the religious
person doesn't either, without Christ. They don't think much
about God either, because they don't think they have any more
need of Him. They think they've got everything fixed up, and
that God's happy with them because they're so religious, and they
don't give any thought of Him either. It's just motions that
they go through. The only person who has any understanding,
the only person who has any sense whatsoever, is the person that
God's given life to, that God's given some understanding to.
Then they don't see themselves as complete. When God gives understanding,
what does that cause us to do? To seek after Him. To have a
heart that hungers and thirsts after Him. The person that has
some understanding seeks the Lord Jesus Christ to be everything. Not only to them, but for them.
And the only way we're ever going to have that understanding is
if the Lord gives it. But the natural understanding
we're born with doesn't understand anything spiritually. So, verse
12, because we don't have any understanding, they're all gone
out of the way. They're together become unprofitable. There's
none that do us good. No, not one. They're all gone
out of the way. And you know the way. It's the
Lord Jesus Christ, the way, the truth, and the life. They've
gone out of the way. They've gone out of the way of Christ
because they're dead, without any understanding of what's best
for them. So they've gone out of the way
because they didn't see Christ. They go out of the way of Christ.
They go out of the way of life in the opposite direction, into
the way of sin and destruction. Solomon said in Proverbs 14,
there is a way that seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof
are the ways of death. They don't seek Christ and life
in Him, so the way they end up going is the way of death. And
they become unprofitable. Any man left to himself is unprofitable. They're unprofitable to men,
and they're unprofitable to God. Just completely incapable of
glorifying God, which is the chief end of man. And the writers
say, Paul is kind of alluding to this illustration. A man is
very, very wealthy. And through a series of foolish
business decisions, he loses everything. Not only does he
lose everything, he goes sub-zero, racks up a debt he can never
pay, and he's bankrupt. And they come and throw him out
on the street, and he's gone out of the way. He's become unprofitable
to himself and to society. And that's the way we are in
Adam. Adam wasn't created like we are sitting here today. He
was created perfect and upright. unspeakably rich. But he sinned
against God. And not only did he lose everything,
he racked up a debt he could never pay. He went so far sub-zero,
he's spiritually bankrupt. And that's the nature he passed
on to us. Spiritually bankrupt and unprofitable. And because
we have this sin nature, natural man cannot do anything good. It's impossible for someone with
our nature to do something good. Even the things we call good
deeds, to help someone. They all have sin mixed in with
them, which makes them not good. You know, we don't help our neighbor
out so we can just do good to help our neighbor. We do good
to our neighbor so people say, look how good he is. He's self-sacrificing
to help his neighbor in peril. And that applies to man in the
flesh and it applies to man in religion too. Not only are the
deeds done in the flesh unprofitable, that our actions in religion
are unprofitable. They do not bring us closer to
God without Christ. So, verse 13, their throat is
an open sepulcher. With their tongues they use to
seek, the poison of Asp is under their lips. The sin nature that's
in us shows itself in word and action. It doesn't just stay
dormant inside. It shows itself. The throat's
an open sepulcher. It's an open grave. You know,
we have laws that prevent people from opening graves because you
don't want to see what's in there. It's so offensive. And we don't
want to see what's in there because what's in that grave is the end
of all flesh. It's offensive to us. And we
just do not see it. And when they open their mouths,
they reveal what's inside. It's just like opening that tomb.
You just reveal what's inside. And when we open our mouths in
our flesh, What comes out is an offensive smell, it's an offensive
sight, and it's an offensive sound. Because out of the abundance
of the heart, the mouth speaketh, and what's the abundance of the
heart that we're born with? It's sin and corruption. And
in the flesh, oh, how men lie, they speak evil of their neighbor,
they speak evil of God, they think nothing of slandering the
people that are around them. They talk about all sorts of
things that ought not be talked about. Just every day you see
things that just ought not be talked about in public. Things
that are just corrupt and they get enjoyment out of it. They
never talk about mercy. They never talk about grace.
They never talk about holiness. And men and religion are the
same way. There's no difference. They lie
on men and they lie on God. They stand up and what men think
is holy and they're preaching and they blaspheme God Almighty
by talking about how God loves everyone. How Christ died for
everyone and it's up to you to make it effectual. They steal
God's glory by taking some of it to themselves, by giving some
of it to the creature. And they do everything that a
man in the flesh does. They do everything. They just
cover it up with religion. They just cloak it with religion
and they've been taught to be careful enough not to let men
see it in public. That's exactly what the Lord
told the Pharisees, isn't it? He told them, you're a whited
sepulcher. Oh, you're white and clean on the outside. You've
got a pretty headstone. You've got well-groomed grass
and grounds and trees. Oh, it's beautiful. But what's
inside? Dead men's bones. Corruption.
You know what's inside that whited sepulcher? The exact same thing
that's in the unmarked grave in a gravel pit or something,
where there's no beauty around it whatsoever. What's inside
is exactly the same. With the tongue, Paul says, they've
used deceit. Lying comes so easily to them,
it just rolls off the tongue. Frequently they tell a lie and
the truth will do just as well. Because it's their nature. They're
taking after their father, the devil, who's the father of lies.
The poison of asps is under their lips. The things that they say
poison and kill. They poison relationships. They
think nothing of poisoning a man's character and reputation. And
it's the same in religion and the same in the flesh. The heathen,
they just do it broken means. The religious does it under the
cover of piety. How we ought to warn people.
The exact same thing because the nature is the same. And Scripture
warns us about the tongue, the sins of the tongue. Look in Psalm
39. And we sit here this morning. This
is the nature now we're carrying around. Like I said, we put it
in the ground. We need to be warned of these
things. Be aware, this is our nature.
Psalm 39, verse 1. I said, I'll take heed to my
ways. that I sin not with my tongue. I'll keep my mouth with
a brile when the wicked is before me, that I sin not with my tongue."
Now look over in James chapter 3. In James 3 verse 3, James says, Behold, we put bits
in horses' mouths, that they may obey us, and we turn about
their whole body. Behold also the ships, which
though they be so great, and are driven of fierce winds, yet
are they turned about with a very small helm, whithersoever the
governor listeth. Even so the tongue is a little
member, and boasteth great things. Behold, how great a matter a
little fire kindleth, and the tongue is a fire, a whirl of
iniquity. So is the tongue among our members,
that it defileth the whole body, and setteth on fire the course
of nature, and it is set on fire of hell. For every kind of beast,
and of birds, and of serpents, and of things in the sea is tamed,
and they hath been tamed of mankind." You can train a dolphin to jump
up through a hoop. You can train a whale to jump
up. You can train a tiger to stand
up on a box. But the tongue can no man tame. It is an unruly evil, full of
deadly poison. That's the nature we're born
with. That's what Paul's talking about over here. And that shows
us so clearly our need of the Lord Jesus Christ, who did no
sin, neither was any guile found in His mind. He's the exact opposite
of us. He's everything we need. Paul goes on about the mouth.
He said their mouth is full of cursing and bitterness. Their
mouth is full of cursing against all men, all kinds of authority
everywhere God's put it, and cursing against God. And their
mouth is full of bitterness. And you know why their mouth
is full of bitterness? Because their heart's full of
bitterness. They're just bitter about how bad men are to them.
They're bitter about the circumstances of life. They're bitter about
everybody around them. Their mouth is not full of the
sweetness of God's grace, but bitterness. And it's full of
bitterness because there is no grace in them. That's why. Verse
15, their feet are swift to shed blood. Not only do we love to
talk about sin and think about sin, we're swift to put it into
action. Their feet are swift to shed
blood. Always ready to jump into action. met her, but my wife's great
grandmother, Granny Mac, they call her. I've heard so much
about her over the years. Granny Mac. Granny Mac was always
ready to go visit somebody, go to town. Somebody's going to
town to ask her if she wanted to go. She said, I'm ready. Let
me get my hat. I'm ready to go. Now, I don't care what time of
day it was. And every time she'd be cooking, she'll take it off
the stove. I'm ready. Let me get my hat. I'm ready
to go. When it comes to sin, we're Granny Mac. Let me get
my hat. I'm ready to go. Feet are swift to shed blood,
just so industrious to cause harm or be ugly somewhere. And
it's the same in the flesh, and it's the same in religion and
the like. Exact same nature. Verse 16,
Paul says, destruction and misery are in their ways, and the way
of peace have they not known. I quoted that verse a little
bit ago. There's a way that seemeth right
unto a man, but the end thereof, the ways thereof, are the ways
of death. Destruction and misery. Brother Henry's outline, he says,
sin, the way of sin doesn't build up, it destroys. And everywhere
they go, men, if they're left to themselves, will leave a trail
of destruction, just broken glass and destruction and burnt ground
behind them. It's like Sherman's march to
the sea. It wasn't hard to tell where he'd been. He left a wide
trail of destruction behind him. And that's what sin does. It
always brings misery. It brings misery to the people
around us. And ultimately it brings misery to us. And you
don't have to wait until the next world and it starts bringing
it in this world. But certainly it will bring eternal misery.
Because every way outside of Christ is death. He's the way
of life and every other way outside of Him is death. And people are
in this way that brings so much misery because they do not know
the way of peace. That's why they don't know Christ
who's the way of peace. They don't know how to maintain
peace with people because they don't know how to find any peace
in themselves or about themselves because they don't know Him who
is peace. And again, this applies to people
in the flesh and people in religion alike. You work with people,
it's easy to see people don't know how to have peace. But in
man's religion, most churches, in man's religion now, are war
zones. They're just at war with one
another. It's amazing. You know why it's a war zone?
Because Christ isn't there. Because Christ isn't the focus.
Because Christ isn't the message. He's the way of peace. When somebody
cannot have peace, it's because they're without Christ. Verse
18, there's no fear of God before their eyes. The reason people
act with such disregard to the scripture, with such disregard
to God's way, is because there's no fear of God. There's no reverence
of God in their eyes. Their eyes are blind, so there
is no reverence of God to them. The fear of the Lord, the reverence
of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. The fear of the Lord
leads to faith and obedience, repentance. But where there is
no fear of the Lord, there is no restraint, and it's hard telling
where we'll end up. Now, verse 19. Now, we know,
that what things soever the law saith, that saith to them who
are under the law, that every mouth may be stopped, and all
the world may become guilty before God." Now, the law here is a
whole lot more than just the Ten Commandments. It's the whole
Word of God. It's the whole moral law. It's
the law that says repent and believe on the name of the Lord
Jesus Christ. It's the whole law. Now, who's
under the law? There's these things that Paul
says the law say to them who are under the law. Who's under
the law? All mankind. Both Jew and Gentile alike. No
matter where you're born, you're born in God's creation, you're
born under God's law, under his rule. And it's impossible for
us Because of the nature we're born with to keep the law. It's
impossible for someone with a depraved nature who drinks iniquity like
water to keep God's holy law. All we're capable of is sinning
against the law. And the law wasn't given to men
as a way for men who are unrighteous to work their way up and become
righteous. The law was given to show us
who we are. To show us that we're to make
it just painfully obvious. We are guilty before God. We don't have any defense. We
don't have any excuse. We can't claim I didn't do it.
We did it. The laws exposed us for who and
what we are. Sinners against God. Now verse
20. 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. Now way back in chapter 1, Paul
started this discussion that's bringing us to this conclusion.
No flesh can be justified before God by our actions, because all
of our actions are sinful. All our actions do is reveal
more of our guilt, reveal more of our corruption. All of our
actions drive us further from God and further out of the way.
By the law is the knowledge of sin. Righteousness can never
come through our obedience to the law. All the law can do is
show us the knowledge of how sinful we are. And the Jews loved
to boast about how they had the law and the prophets, didn't
they? But all the law could do was show them how guilty they
were. They couldn't use the law to make themselves better than
anybody else. All the law did was show them how guilty they
were. The law can never heal. All it
can do is pronounce judgment. All it can do is kill. The law
will show you how guilty, how sinful you are, but it can never
show, it can never provide the way out. All the law can do is
condemn. All the law can do is shut us
up to Christ. To show us we cannot make ourselves
righteous. It's an impossibility. The law
was given as a schoolmaster to drive us to Christ. The law says
you're guilty. The gospel says There's one who
can make you righteous. We can't have a righteousness
in ourselves, but there's one who does. You shouldn't say He
can make people righteous. He does make His people righteous. And that's where we'll begin
next week. We started this all back in chapter 1 to get to this.
The righteousness of Christ. That's what we'll pick up next
week, Lord willing.