If you'll turn back with me now
to Romans chapter 3, having read these things to you, I'd like to speak to you this
morning from verses 9 through 26, Romans chapter 3. My subject
is the bad news and the good news. But it's actually even
the bad news is good news when you get the good news. Even the
bad news is good because nobody but a man enlightened of God
can really receive the bad news. The word gospel, strictly speaking,
means good news. The word news means the reporting
of something before unknown. That's why we read our newspapers. That's what's supposed to be
in them, things that we haven't heard yet. It's the declaration
of something that men need to know. And the gospel, though
it exposes man's sins and exposes his guilty conscience,
It also convinces him of his sin, and as such, begins to be
something of good news when he understands what it means. And
yet, from the hearer's point of view, it's separated. What he hears first is bad news. Bad news. So let's talk about
this a little while. What is the bad news? What's
the bad news? The bad news and that which the
overwhelming majority of mankind is ignorant of is man's fall
in the garden. He doesn't know that. He's not
aware of that. I dare say these young men and
women that are in here this morning, these young children, they've
been going to school now for quite a while. They didn't find
out anything in school that made them aware of that. If they're
aware of it at all, if you're here today and you're aware at
all of the fall of Adam, this is where you learned it. You
didn't learn it out there. Nobody's talking about this out
here. The overwhelming majority of mankind is ignorant of man's
fall in the garden. Totally ignorant of it. He doesn't
make a single decision based on it. It doesn't enter into
his reasoning about anything, his fall in action. You talk
to him about the things of God, and he goes a different direction
than you do, and he goes that direction because he knows nothing
about the fall. My friend, society is not the
product of evolution. It's true that as a society,
we've grown in the knowledge of the arts and sciences. We've
advanced in our knowledge of medicine. We've advanced somewhat
in the means of transportation. I dare say the Apostle Paul would
love to have had a Cadillac to climb in and drive to here and
drive to there or somewhere else. He loved to just sit on airplane
flue over here to this nation or that nation. We've advanced in medicine and
means of travel, and we've advanced somewhat in living conditions.
I remember growing up as a kid, I didn't know anything at all
about air conditioning. I never heard of it. They didn't call
it air conditioning back then. They called it conditioned air. And some people that we knew
had it. I didn't even understand what
it was for. Yet the curse of God upon us as a race has gone
unchanged since the fall. None of these advances had anything
to do with it. Didn't have anything to do with
it. According to Romans 5, verse 12, sin entered, death passed,
and the evidence of it is that all have sinned. All have sinned. And if there were no sin, there'd
be no sickness. There'd be no suffering. and
there'd be no death. These things are all the result
of sin. And Paul said these things existed
before the giving of the law. These things existed, we know
that, and even over them who did not sin after the similitude
of Adam. In other words, they didn't sin
like that. They were just babies. They were just young children. The plague didn't bypass children.
Children died. It didn't bypass certain races,
they all died. If there were no sin, there'd
be no sickness, there'd be no suffering, there'd be no death.
If there were no sin, there'd be no divisions, there'd be no
arguments, there'd be no differences, no wars, no fighting. If there were no sin, we wouldn't
have anything to fight about. We'd all be in agreement. Society
is not the product of evolution, it's the product of depraved
men who fell and ate them. Romans 5.17 tells us that by
this one man's offense, death reigned. It reigned. Reigned over what? Reigned over
all men. Reigned. In verse 18 of Romans
5. By this one man's offense, judgment
came upon all men to condemnation. Verse 19, but by this one man's
disobedience, we were made sinners. How were we made sinners? In
nature. In nature. And then in verse
21, he tells us that this inherent sin that came by the fall of
Adam reigns unto death. If God does not intervene, you're
doomed. That's the fall of Adam. That's
the bad news. But you say, how can that be?
People do good things like food shelters and homes for the indigent
and so on, and there's things going on. I remember as a child
having certain aunts and uncles and relatives that were kind
to me and manifested some love toward me. I remember people
in our community that Stood out is what we call good folks. Excuse me. Well, let me see if
I can help you a little bit about that. You reckon a rattlesnake knows
it's a rattlesnake? Huh? You reckon it knows what
it is? He was born a rattlesnake. He
was raised around other rattlesnakes, had the nature of a rattlesnake,
hunted like a rattlesnake, struck like a rattlesnake. Being a rattlesnake is all it
ever knew. It's all it ever knew. Compared to other rattlesnakes,
it might even have been an outstanding specimen of a rattlesnake. Might
have been. But the truth is, it was born
a rattlesnake, it lives the life of a rattlesnake, and it dies
just like it was born. But a sinner, and being a sinner,
now listen to me, is natural to a natural man. Is that right? Being a sinner is natural to
a natural man. I gave this illustration one
time. I said, you take a bunch of children, little, small children,
three, four years old. You put them over here in this
room, and it's got one closet. And you take that whole box of
toys that's in the nursery in there, and you pour them out
on the floor, and you say, now, you kids, you help yourself. You can have any toys here, but
now don't go in that closet. And then you go peek through
the glass and see where they go first. Every last one of them
will run for the closet, open that door, and look in. Why? Because that's their nature.
That's their nature. David said, I come forth from
the womb speaking lies. Those of you that have raised
children, you know these tiny babies, sometimes they just cry
and cry and cry and cry and cry. Like they're hurt, like they're
really in bad need of something, and you go over there and you
keep checking, they don't need anything. It just wants attention.
David said, I come forth from the womb that way. Speaking lies. Being a sinner is natural to
a natural man. That's all he's ever known. But
the gospel, it's not based on man's views and man's reasonings
and man's evaluations. The gospel is God's gospel. Paul said he was called to be
an apostle back in Romans 1. He said, I was called to be an
apostle. He said, I was separated unto the gospel of God. Everything I have to say to you
this morning is based on the testimony of God, not the reasonings
and evaluations of men. That doesn't enter in. Paul said,
let every man be a liar and God be true. When he talked about
somebody else coming there in Galatians with another gospel,
he said, though it were an angel, though me, myself, Or an angel
from God, if he comes and brings any other gospel than what I
preached to you today, he said, let him be accursed. Let him
be accursed. Let God be true and every man
a liar. Just start there. He that believeth not God, the
Scripture said, hath made him a liar. So you be careful when
God says a thing, you be careful not to jump up too quick and
say, well, I don't believe that. One man went so far as to, one
of our fellows told him, he said, well, if you'll just be still
a minute, he said, I'm trying to tell you this is what the
Word of God says. He said, I don't care what the
Word of God says. Whoa. I know he didn't think
about that statement before he made it. Just slipped out. The bad news is that man fell
in his father Adam. He fell into sin and death. He was born with the nature of
sin. He's biased to sin. Man says he has a free will.
He don't have a free will. His will is in bondage to his
nature, and his nature is sinful. He's not free. He's not biased
by God or the things of God. He's biased by his fallen nature. His will is not free. It's in bondage. He was born
with a nature to sin, biased to sin, desiring to sin. This
is condemnation, our Lord said over there in John chapter 3,
I think it's verse 19. This is condemnation. Light came
into the world and men loved darkness rather than light. They
desired their sin. Their deeds were evil. They love darkness rather than
light. And then Paul tells us in Romans
chapter 3 verse 9, he said he's already proved both Jews and
Gentiles are all under sin. That's the bad news. We're all
under sin. We have a nature of sin. We can't
break free from our nature. We're born this way. This death,
he calls it death. By one man, sin entered into
the world and death by sin. That particular death there is
not talking about physical death, it's talking about spiritual
death. It talks about it again over in Ephesians 2, you hath
he quickened who were dead in trespasses and sin. That's spiritual
death, wherein you walked according to the course of this world,
according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit
who now worketh in the children of disobedience. It's called
death in the scripture, and we're under We're under the sin. Both
Jews and Gentiles are all under the sin. We're under the rule
of it, under the effects of it, under the judgment of it, under
the influence of it. And in all of Adam's posterity,
there's none in and of himself. Paul said it's righteous. That's
what it means to be under sin. None righteous. Listen to this, verse 11. I read
all these to you a while ago. I'm just going to touch on them.
There's none, not Jew or Gentile, that understandeth, none that
seeketh after God, all gone out of the way. This one went that
way and this one went that way, but they're all gone out of the
way. There's only one way. Christ is the way. But these
went the way of the baptism of babies, and these went the way
of something else, of Pope and Mary and all this stuff. And
this went this way. They all gone out of the way.
They went different ways, some other way. But they gone out
the way. They're together become unprofitable. There's none that do it good,
no, not one. Their throat is an open sepulcher.
If you could look inside, Spiritually speaking, if you could look inside
of a man, it'd be just the same as looking inside of an open
grave. You'd see corruption. You'd see
rottenness. You'd see deadness. Their throat is an open sepulcher.
With their tongues, they've used deceit. The poison of snakes
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. the way of peace they've not
known, and no fear of God before their eyes. Now, men and women under certain
conditions may experience a natural fear by disaster, disease, some
kind of near-death experience, but it doesn't last very long.
And it doesn't rise from a conviction of the sin or from the testimony
of God. And that fear disappears soon.
The fear of which Paul is talking about here is a reverential fear. One like a son would fear his
own father. It's a fear born in love. And
while it respects him for who he is and obeys his commands,
it never leaves him feeling like he's Not one would be fathered. I never one time ever had the
feeling that I wasn't my father's son. No matter what I did. But that's the way we feel, isn't
it? Toward God. No fear of God before. The bad
news is that a fallen son of Adam has a fallen son of Adam. I've got no title to his sonship. No right to His inheritance,
no deed to a heavenly home, and no reason in me why God ought
to be or do anything for me. Huh? You done something you think
obligates God to show you mercy? Is there anything in you? that
you think, that you were born with, that you think would obligate
God to show you mercy. There's nothing. Oh, rich young ruler, he knew
nothing about sin. He said, what must I do to be
saved? The Lord said, you can keep the law. He said, all these
things have I done from my youth up. Oh, how deceived a man is
following me. Do you know the very first commandment
is to love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, soul, mind, and
strength? And all the rest of the law,
every precept, hangs on that. So if I pay my tithes, but I
don't love, I don't pay them because I love the Lord my God
with all my heart, soul, mind, and strength, that was all vain. If I restrain myself and don't
commit adultery all my life, but I don't do it because I love
the Lord thy God with all my heart, soul, mind, and strength,
then I'm still guilty. The whole law hangs on this. And he said the second one's
just like it. Love your neighbor as yourself. Anybody here do
that? Your neighbor's kid and yours
is drowning, which one would you save first? I've got no title to a sonship,
no right to his inheritance, no deed for a heavenly home. I've got no reason why God ought
to do anything for me. And he tells me here in Romans
3.19, if I understand what the law says, and I understand, here's
all the evidence, this is what I am, none righteous, none good,
no not one, all these things. And these things, the law takes
those things and convicts me of those things and shows me
that I haven't kept a single precept. And we know that what
things soever the law saith, it saith to them that are under
the law that every mouth might be stopped. I've got no more
excuses. He shut my mouth and he shut
me up before a holy God without any hope of anything except in
his mercy. Where are you right now? Huh? Where am I this morning? Where
are you this morning? Before this guy? You not shut
up to his mercy? Huh? Are we not shut up to his
mercy? We got nothing else going for
us. A fella told me, this is an old
fella, I took him out a glass of water. mowing the grass down
in Ball, Louisiana on a hot August day. And I took him out a glass
of water and gave it to him. He had to be close to old Glenn's
age, in his 80s, before he died. And he got talking to me, and
he said, one thing I can say, he said, liquor never crossed
his lips. I told him, I said, well, maybe
you ought to get a drink. Maybe you ought to get one. My
soul, that's no hope before God. This is what the law does. It
takes all these silly things that we hope in, all these ignorant
things that deceived men have told us we could hope in. We
hope in those things. Bad news is you don't have anything
to hope in. You can't even obligate God for
the death of Christ. That has to be revealed to you.
That has to be given to you. Where are you right now before
God? Are you not shut up to his mercy?
That's exactly where we are. We shut up to his sovereign mercy
and grace. You're still attempting to try
to justify yourself, still trying to gain God's favor by your work,
still trying by your own ability to climb up out of the pit. Where
are you right now before God? Let me tell you something. If
you ever hear from God, if He's ever pleased to confirm this
Word in your heart, this is what's going to take place. You're going to find yourself
with a closed mouth. You're not going to have anything. You're not going to have anything. Every mouth is going to be stopped.
stopped in its justifying, and stopped in its excusing, and
stopped in its defending, and stopped in its resisting, and
he's going to be guilty before God. He's going to get on God's
side in the condemnation of his own soul. You can read it in
Psalm chapter 51. You can read about it. David got on God's side in his
own condemnation. An accused man, a man who's simply
accused, he puts up a defense, he puts up an argument, he gets
him a lawyer. But a convicted man, he acknowledges
his crimes, he owns his guilt, and he throws himself on the
mercy of the judge. He stands condemned before God. The bad news is that a man is
in bondage to his fallen nature. He's a sinner by nature. He's
a sinner by choice. And he's a sinner by practice.
He's a sinner in motive, thought, and deed. And a sinner is what
he's going to stay until God intervenes. How does God intervene? First of all, He arranges His
providence for you to hear the truth. That's the first thing
He does. People just think they walk in
here, well, it just As luck would have it, you know, I wish they'd
take that word out of the English language. I catch myself using
it every now and then. It's just a terrible word. It
denies the absolute sovereignty of God. You're here this morning
by the sovereign providence of God. He arranged for you to be
here, and He can arrange for you never to come back. That's
just so. This sinner, we're sinners and
we're going to stay sinners all our days unless God is pleased
to intervene. How does He intervene? He intervenes
through His providence. He intervenes through the preaching
of the gospel. He intervenes by His sovereign
spirit who alone can give you an understanding. All right,
preacher, well, what's the good news? The good news is that Jesus
Christ came into this world to save sinners. Depraved, fallen,
helpless, hopeless sinners. That's why He came. He didn't
come down here because God looked down and saw a bunch of men over
here that were doing the best they could. That family there,
that father there, boy, he prays for his kids and he's doing the
best he can do. And I think I'm going to save
two or three of them. That's not why he came. Oh, my soul. Christ Jesus came
into this world to save sinners. Even those who are convinced
of their sin in the very beginning, They just wait and wait and wait
and wait. And what are they waiting for?
They're trying to dress up their faith. They're trying to make
a righteous faith out of what they've got. There's no such
thing. Christ is my righteousness. I
don't need to be righteous in any... He's my righteousness. We want to dress up everything
we do and make it pleasing to God and bring it light on us,
and that's what we try to do with our faith. When it gets
so it pleases me, then I'm going to present it to God. I'll tell
you, if you do, He'll step on it, and He'll spit on it, and
He'll walk away from it. Our Lord values one thing, Christ, and everything that's in Him. Christ Jesus came into this world
to save sinners. Not self-righteous men, not men
and women doing the best they can do, but sinners. Sinners. Listen to this. When we were
yet without strength in due time, Christ died for the ungodly. He died for that man who has
nothing of God in him. He's ungodly. Romans 5, 7, for
scarcely for a righteous man will one die, and peradventure
for a good man some would even dare to die. But God commendeth
his love toward us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died
for us. Right in the middle of his crucifixion
was a man railing on him. Can you imagine? He's dying for
this man. He's given himself a ransom for
this man. This is one of God's elect. And
Christ is hanging up there suffering, and people down on the ground
just casting things in their teeth at Him, and all these absurdities,
and they stripped Him, and there He hangs naked on the cross.
And here's this man up there, and he's a criminal, and he's
railing on Him just like everybody else. And Christ was dying for
him. And before it was over, he made
that man to know that he was dying for him. And when he did,
he shut his mouth. He didn't have anything else.
He said, man, don't rail on him. We deserve to be here. He hadn't
done anything. I don't know who God's elect
are, but I do know this. They're all self-confessed sinners.
And they're brought there by the power and presence of God's
Holy Spirit. Our Lord said, they that be whole
need not a physician, but they that are sick. Here's these Pharisees,
and everybody knew they were righteous men. Everybody honored
them as righteous men, learned men, men of God, ministers, priests. They had man's all. All these
type of things. And our Lord said to them, He
said, they don't need a physician. They're not sick. They're not
sick. They that behold need not a physician,
but they that are sick. Now He said, you go learn what
this means. Pointed right to those Pharisees.
You go learn what this means. I will have mercy and not sacrifice,
for I'm not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. You see, we're the ones ignorant
of the salvation of God. God's not ignorant. He understands
Christ came to save sinners. The sinner's the one who's ignorant.
He tries to make himself righteous. He didn't come to call the righteous.
He comes to call sinners to repentance. The first work of the Spirit
in God's elect is to convince him of his sin. to show to him
his need of a Savior, his need of God's righteousness, and his
need of being justified by God. In John chapter 6, our Lord said,
All that the Father hath given Me shall come to Me. Why will He come to Him? He has
need. That's why He come to Him. He
came as a Savior, didn't He? He come as the Christ. He come
as our righteousness. As our go-between, He come as
the one mediator between God and me. We come to Him, that's
how we come. We come understanding what He
is and what we are. We come to Him because we have
need. We have need. We need His sinners. And we come
to Him who is the fountain of all grace. Why do all of God's elect come
to Christ? Several reasons. John chapter
6 verse 40 tells us that everyone that seeth the Son and believeth
on Him may have everlasting life. He's a dead sinner. He needs
life. No life in the world. No life in the pool. No life
in the church. Where is this life at? It's in
His Son. He that hath the Son hath life.
He that hath not the Son of God hath not life. Men come to Christ
because there's salvation in Him. And this salvation to give
is the will of God. Scripture says, God Almighty
predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to
Himself according, now listen to this, to the good pleasure
of His will. Not my will, His will. Our Lord
preached to a bunch of intellectual, self-righteous Pharisees who
marveled at His speaking ability. And they said, well, how does
he do this? He's had no formal training. Huh? How knoweth this man letters,
having never learned? John 7, verse 16, Jesus answered
them and said, my doctrine's not mine, but his that sent me. If any man will do his will,
he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God or whether
I speak of myself. Huh? It's the will of God. Secondly,
they came to Christ because there's nowhere else to go. Where else
are you going to go? I want you to know what you are,
the sinner, helpless, hopeless. Now where are you going to go?
You can't run. See, before that, any church
would do, wouldn't it? My own mother said that. They're
just alike. You just pick one out and go.
They're not just alike. They're not just alike. Beware of false prophets. That's
what we've been studying over in the book of Peter. They're
not just alike. Every man out there that says,
I'm called to God, I'm a preacher, that don't mean anything. Listen
to His message. See if it's in conjunction with
the Word of God. Two of our young men went to
Or many in church the other day. They come home and say, Daddy,
he's saying exactly what our preacher said they were saying. Their services are conducted
exactly the way he said they'd been conducted. And he said they
didn't have anything at all to say about Christ. And they're
talking about men and talking about how good they are and talking
about all these things. Chosen sinners are shut up to
Christ. Their strongholds are torn down.
He comes in through this gospel and through His Spirit, and He
tears down your stronghold. He'll chop it into bits. He takes
away their hiding places. Their vain religion is revealed
for what it is. And He declares to them with
a true knowledge of the law what they are. And where now are you
going to go except to Christ? Huh? None other name given under
heaven whereby we must be saved. You're a leper. No cure for leprosy. You're a leper. But you heard
one day that this man Jesus cured leprosy. What are you going to
do? Are you going to go back to the
leper colony? You're going to go run and hide
out in the woods somewhere and hope this leprosy disappears? You're going to go to Him? No
hope in anybody else. The hope in Him, He cured leprosy. What did that leper do? He'd
come. He was forbidden to even come where they were at. And
he fought his way through the crowd, cast himself down at the
feet of Jesus, and he said, If you will. He didn't fall down there and
say, I claim healing. I see men doing that on TV. I
claim this. You're not a leper. If you was
a leper, you wouldn't be doing that. You'd fall down on your
face, and half of it rotted off with the cloth on there. And
you'd fall down, and you'd muddle out the word, if you will. You
can make me clean. That's not complicated, is it? He said, I will. And he was clean. He was clean. Oh, men come to Christ because
there's nowhere else to go. And then men come to Christ because
God draws them. He says over in John 6, 44, no
man can come unto me except the Father which has sent me draw
him. I'll raise him up. He can be drawn of God. As it's
written in the Prophets, they shall all be taught of God, and
they shall. He draws them circumstantially.
I can't explain that. I had a business in Northern
Ohio one time, and it was a booming business. I just, I didn't have
to advertise. I never advertised a day that
I was up there. I had a good reputation. We offered
a good service and did good work, and we had more business than
we could do. And I just, I mean, they called me, I'd have to turn
work down. I couldn't take it on. Things was really beginning to
move. All of a sudden, the economy went south. Banking got tight. Me and my business partners couldn't
see eye to eye. Long story short, I moved to
Kentucky. Get away from me. I wanted out
of there. I moved to Kentucky. I heard the gospel. God saved
me. Huh? Circumstantially. I can't explain it. That's how
it happened. That's how it happened. God draws
His people to Christ both by an outward circumstance and by
inward convictions. And He draws them. Listen to
this now. John 6.45, it's written in the
prophets, they shall all be taught of God. Every man therefore that
hath heard and hath learned of the Father cometh unto me. There's
a hearing involved in the coming. There's a hearing involved in
the drawing, and all those that hear and hear from God, and are
taught and taught by God, come to Christ, every one of them.
That's how you know God taught them. They come to Him. Every
one of them. I've never met a believer who
didn't come to Christ. Never did. Never believe I will. So the good news of the gospel
is that God has made, ordained, and put into place the means
by which the recovery is banished. Christ our Savior and Redeemer,
the Holy Ghost, the Word of God, the preaching of the Gospel.
All these things God has put in place. He's exercising them,
using them, bringing these things to pass even as I speak to you
this morning. The good news is that God has
purposed with an everlasting purpose, with a sovereign purpose.
to save a people for the glory of His name. And He's not willing
that any of His elect should perish, but that all should come
to repentance. The man whom God's pleased to
reveal this to, he sees even his conviction of sin as a good
thing. God doesn't convict everybody's
sin. Some of them, He just leaves them to themselves, and they
run around thinking they're righteous, thinking they're accepted of
God, and they go out to meet God just that way. But not His
elect. He convicts His elect of sin.
He convinces them of sin. They know what sin is. And knowing
what sin is, and knowing that they have a need, boy, them ears
tune up. They won't hear every word. Every
word. Maybe God will speak to me today. Maybe He will. That's what happened
to me. Well, I was in there a bunch
of days, and I'm not saying that truth wasn't spoken. Truth was
spoken, but I didn't hear it. One day, he spoke to me. And
boy, I heard. I heard. Now, where do you stand? Huh? Do you believe what I preached
to you today? Is what I've said to you today
full of holes or does it run in agreement with the Word of
God? I've given you verse after verse after verse of Scripture. Well, I'll tell you this, you'll
either reject it or you'll bow to it. You'll either believe
it or you'll go on indifferent to it. It demands your obedience. It commands your repentance and
faith. And everything else is rebellion. Everything else is
rebellion. I don't know if you read that
article I got in there. I thought it was an excellent
article by Henry Mahan in the bulletin this morning. And he
said, God commands you not to have perfect light, but to walk
in the light God gives you. Now, I don't know what he's giving
you, but you better walk in that light and don't tax his patience. But don't wait for this to grow
and be prettier and put flowers on it. just come to him as you
are, as you are, poor, helpless, hopeless sinner, and trust in
him. And I dare say you can't find
one reason to not trust in him. Now, I'm not telling you to go
crawl on broken glass and do all this stuff that religion
in the past has told men to do. I'm telling you this morning,
as clearly as I know how to tell you, to trust in Christ. Salvation's
in Him. Life's in Him. Blessings in Him.
Your future's in Him. Trust in Him. And trust in Him as God has given
testimony of Him about what He's done and who He's done it for.