That Every Mouth May Be Stopped

Romans 3 verse 19, the Word of
God declares, We know that what thing soever the law saith, it
saith to them who are under the law, that every mouth may be
stopped. Now one clear evidence to me
that we're in that day that Amos spoke of, there'll come a famine,
not of bread, not of water, but of hearing the word of God. One
clear evidence to me that we're in that day that men do not know
themselves and do not know God, is the abundance of religious
talk. Everybody has something to say. There's no hesitancy on the part
of anyone, old or young, learned or ignorant, to express an opinion
on every subject in the Bible. There are very few learners today,
there are no disciples, because everyone is his own teacher. Men today in the mills, in the
shops, in the stores, on the streets, in the ballparks, on
the golf courses, in the homes, argue religion. They talk religion. And you will find every one of
them is an expert on the Bible. I'm not being sarcastic, I'm
being truthful. It wasn't that way among God's
true people. It wasn't that way among those
who knew God, who knew themselves. I want you to listen to a few
verses of Scripture. Don't try to find them, I'm going
to read them rapidly. The first one taken from the
book of Ezra, chapter 9, verse 4. Here's a man who knew God,
and here was the result of his meeting God. And at the evening
sacrifice, I arose from my affliction, and having torn my garment, I
fell upon my knees. And I spread out my hands before
the Lord my God, and I cried, O my God. I am ashamed. I blush to lift up my face to
thee, my God, for my sins are increased over my head." That's
one of God's prophets. That's one of his true people. That's Ezra. I am ashamed and
I blush to lift up my face to God. Do you know anybody in this
whole religious world that's ashamed to pray? Do you know
anybody in this whole religious world that's ashamed or blushes
to answer any question about religion, about doctrine, about
the Bible? Job said in chapter 40, verse
4, after he came face to face with God, His holiness, His majesty,
His power, he said in Job 40, verse 4, Behold, I am vowed,
what shall I answer? Oh, we have an answer. But Job said, What shall I answer? I will lay my hand on my mouth. David in Psalm 39 verse 9 said
this, I was silent before God. I opened not my mouth because
God did it. I was silent before God. I opened
not my mouth. This is what happens when God
reveals himself. Someone said recently, some great
religious leader of this day, we're approaching a fourth great
world awakening. I don't believe a word of it.
There's too much religious talk. There's no conviction of sin. There's no awareness of sin.
There's no knowledge of God's greatness and power and holiness. We're reaching up with our unclean
hands and we're bringing God down to our level. too much familiarity
with God. That is not the mark of revival. In Ecclesiastes chapter 5 verse
2, the wise man Solomon wrote these
words, Be not rash with thy mouth, let not thine heart be hasty
to utter anything before God, anything. Talk politics Talk
sports, talk business, talk anything you want to, anything you feel
that you have some knowledge about. But be not rash with thy
mouth, and let not thine heart be hasty to utter anything before
God, for God is in the heavens, and thou art upon the earth.
Let thy words be few. Ezekiel 16, verse 62. I will establish my covenant
with thee. Now listen to this. This is God speaking. I will establish my covenant
with thee, and thou shalt know that I am the Lord thy God, that
thou mayest remember and be confounded and never open thy mouth any
more. because of thy shame. That's
the result of a covenant relationship with God. Daniel said, When I
saw the Lord, my comeliness melted into corruption. John, when he
heard the voice of God on the Isle of Patmos, said, I fell
at his feet as a dead man. Isaiah, when he saw the Lord,
said, Woe is me! I am an unclean man of unclean
lips, and would not speak till God came down and touched the
fire of coals and put it on his lip to purify his mouth. When
men of old saw their sins, when they saw the grace of God, it
didn't turn them into babbling fountains, it shut their mouths." Somebody wrote this, "'Philosophers
have measured mountains They've fathomed the depths of seas,
states, and kings. They've walked with a staff to
the heavens and traced fountains, but they're two vast, spacious
things to which to measure we should embrace, yet few understand
them, our sins and God's grace. the which to measure them we
should embrace, yet few understand them, our sins and God's grace. There was one who measured man's
sins in the garden, and when he faced them, He who was sovereign,
almighty, omnipotent, yet clothed in human flesh, when he faced
the awful sins of all the people for whom he suffered, his blood
poured through the pores of his skin in a bloody sweat, and he
cried, I'll die under this burden, my soul is exceeding sorrowful
even unto death. None of us are dying under the
burden of our sins. We haven't even been shut up
yet. In Romans 3.19, our text again,
Paul wrote and said, We know what things soever the law saith,
if it does say anything, if it speaks to me. It speaks to those
who are under the law, and that's every one of us, but maybe it's
not speaking to us. that every mouth may be stopped,
and all the world become guilty, guilty, guilty. The most difficult
thing in the world is to find that guilty person. We're in the business of justifying
ourselves. There are very few guilty people.
And it's impossible to be a partaker of grace until you are guilty. When God opens a sinner's ears
to hear his law, God closes the sinner's mouth. In proportion
as the sinner hears God's law, he closes his mouth. When God
opens a sinner's eyes to see his sin and to see God's glory,
to see his guilt and to see God's grace, to see his unrighteousness
and see God's holiness. When God opens a sinner's eyes,
he shuts that sinner's mouth every time. That every mouth
may be stopped, stopped. And when mouths are stopped,
that'll be an indication that we're moving into some sort of
visitation of God's grace, and not unto Him. In the first place, when God
opens a sinner's eyes to see his sin and to see God's glory,
when God opens a sinner's ears to hear his voice when he speaks
in wrath against our sins and when he speaks in mercy about
his son, he stops the sinner from talking about his own works
and his own morality. Somebody said, one time, as long
as a natural man breathes, he's bad. The Pharisee stood in the
temple and prayed thus with himself, Lord, I thank you. I'm not like
other men. I'm not an extortionist. I'm
not an adulterer. I'm not unjust. I fast twice
a week. I tithe. I give alms. His mouth
hasn't been stopped yet. Even at the judgment they talk
about prophesying in his name and casting out devils and doing
all these wonderful works in his name. Their mouths are not
even stopped at the judgment. But when God's law comes in the
hands of the Holy Spirit, the sinner dies. Listen to Paul.
Turn to Romans 7. He was a proud Pharisee. He was a proud hypocrite, blameless
in his own eyes, but he said in verse 9 of chapter 7 of Romans,
I was alive without the law once, alive and kicking. But when the
commandment came, sin was revealed. I saw my guilt. Sin was revealed. Revolved, here is the word, but
it's revealed to me. It became obvious to me. It was
there all the time. And I died. And the commandment
which was ordained to life originally, do this and live, I found to
be under death. The law killed me. The law didn't
make a proud Pharisee out of me. It killed me, Paul said.
The law didn't show me my goodness and everybody else's guilt. It killed me. Paul in Philippians
3 listed all of his accomplishments in religious circles, and then
he said, I count these things but done. Sometimes I pick up a paper,
and I get requests for this from other pastors. They say, send
me a resume. What they want is all the souls
you've won through Jesus, and all the sermons you've preached,
and the churches you've passed through, and the programs you've
held, and all these things, you know, and I want to write across
that dome. That's what Paul did. He listed
his birth of Benjaminite. He listed his fame and his honors
and his glory and his righteousness. And then he said, I count these
but dumb that I may win Christ. Nothing to them. We're all as an unclean thing,
Isaiah said. We're all, all of us, as an unclean
thing. And our righteousnesses are filthy
rags. When God opens a sinner's eyes
to see there, it'll shut that sinner's mouth. No more will
he boast of his works. No more will he boast of his
morality. No more will he boast of his
birth. But he'll say with Ezra, I am ashamed. I blush, O God,
to lift my voice to thee. Call on somebody else. We are
sin. We cannot breathe without sin. We cannot walk without sin. We
cannot talk without sin. We cannot pray without sin. Even when we confess our sins,
we sin. We add to our condemnation. Even
our repentance, Rutherford said, needs to be repented of. And
even our tears need to be bathed in the blood of Christ, because
even our minds are enmity against God, and our affections are perverted
and twisted. We are sinners. And there's nobody
here who realizes just how great is our sin. No one has the vocabulary to
describe the base, vile, corrupt condition of human flesh compared
to a holy God. And I'm not talking about the
drunkards and the harlots and profane swearers and gamblers.
I'm talking about the best flesh we've got to offer. It's still
flesh. That every mouth may be stopped. that every mouth may be soft. We know what the law says. If
it said anything to us at all, the first thing it did was shut
our mouth about our work. And I'll tell you something else.
When a sinner sees his sin and when he sees God's glory and
holiness, he shuts his mouth about free agency. Now the man who does not see
the prison bars, I hear people always running around arguing,
talking about free will, free agency, free moral agent. I tell you, if God ever speaks
to you, you won't open your mouth about that subject anymore, either
pro or con. You realize how little you know
about it. The man who does not see the prison bars may boast
of his freedom. I'm free! Yeah, you just don't
see the bars, that's the reason you're saying that. The man who
has not yet been told by the doctor that his legs are paralyzed
for life may boast of what he's going to do when he gets out
of there. Nebuchadnezzar may boast of his
power to build mighty Babylon until God opens his eyes and
shows him, you didn't build it, I built it. Belshazzar may boast of his greatness
until he goes down to the temple and gets God's holy vessels and
brings them up there to defile them, and then he sees the whole
kingdom is in the hands of God. The Pharisees may boast of their
father Abraham until Christ tells them, the devil is your father.
Pilate may boast of his power to crucify or release the Lord
Jesus Christ until the Savior, the first time he opened his
mouth in that judgment, spoke up and said, Let's set the record
straight. You have no power over me at
all except it be given you from above. God may let you go on boasting
of your free agency and your free will. God may never correct
you till you stand before him at the judgment. Jeremiah asked
this question, can the Ethiopian change his skin? Can the leper
change his spot? Neither can you do good that
are accustomed to doing evil. Look at John 6.44. John 6.44,
listen to the Master. These people were murmuring,
murmuring, murmuring. And Christ said in John 6.43,
murmur not among yourselves, and then in John 6.44 he declares,
no man, no man. Whatever his natural talent or
ability or heredity, no man. Whatever his wisdom, understanding,
no man can come to me, that is, believe in a saving manner. No
man can come to me except my Father which sent me. I'm God's
Savior. God ordained me. God set me apart. God anointed me. God the Father
sent me. If it hadn't been his will to
send me, he'd have passed you by and left you in your semen. I heard a preacher on the radio
the other day, and he was all lathered up. Oh boy, was he lathered
up. He was fighting predestination.
My, he was upset. He was hollering and screaming.
He said, I don't believe anybody's predestinated to go to hell.
I said, I don't either. I don't either, bud. No, sir,
I don't either, and I don't know anybody that does. I don't know
anybody that's got good sense that believes it. You know why?
And I'll even go one step further
than that. I don't believe anybody's predestinated to go to heaven.
I believe they're chosen and elected to salvation. But we're
predestinated to be conformed to the image of Christ. That's
what the Bible says. But God doesn't elect people
to go to hell. He doesn't choose people to go
to hell. He doesn't predestinate people to go to hell. He leaves
them alone. He just leaves them alone. If a fellow's on a road to condemnation,
you don't have to choose him to receive what he's already
going to get. You see what I'm saying? The sinner's in darkness already. God takes men out of darkness
and puts them in light. The sinner's already dead, God
chooses him and gives him life. The sinner's already blind, God
chooses to give him sight. The sinner's already condemned,
God chooses him to give him salvation. He leaves men alone. They're
already condemned, the world is condemned already. Why should
God choose to condemn it? It's already condemned. No man
can come to me except my Father which sent me. Do what? Draw
him. Except my Father, draw him. The
old leper in Matthew 8 came and said, Lord, if you will, you
can make me whole. Peter, sinking beneath the wave,
cried out, Lord, you save me or I perish. What am I saying? I'm saying what Jonah said from
the depths of the sea, in the fish's belly, salvations of the
Lord. I'm saying what David proclaimed
in the book of Psalms, the salvation of the righteous is of the Lord.
And off you move. When God shows a sinner his inability,
when he shows him his sin, when God shows him God's power and
greatness and sovereignty, he quits talking about free agency,
he quits talking about free will, he quits talking about freedom
and all, and begins to see that he's a captive of sin, that he's
in bondage to sin, and that he can't get loose. that he's got
to have someone mightier than he come and cut the bonds and
cut the shackles and set him free. Christ said he came to
set the captive free. Now how can a man be captive
and be free at the same time? That's what the Pharisees said.
They said, we'd be free. Christ said, you're the servant
of sin. And we're saying the same thing
in this day. We be free, we be free, we be
free, we not free, we're captive, we're in bondage, the bondage
of the will. We're in prison. And when God
shows a man his helpless condition, his hopeless condition, His condition
in barns and shackles of sin and the servant of sin. He quits
talking about free agency and starts talking about free grace.
Tell you something else, turn to Romans 9. We'll go into religious awakening
when this takes place, when God shuts the sinner's mouth, when
the law stops our mouth and we become guilty. because God delights
to show mercy. In Romans 9 verse 11, Paul is
talking about the children being not yet born, neither having
done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election
might stand, not of works, but of him that calleth. It was said
to her, The elder shall serve the younger. As it is written,
Jacob hath a love, but Esau hath a hatred. So what shall we say
then? Is there unrighteousness with
God? Is God not fair? God forbid. He said to Moses,
I'll have mercy on whom I will have mercy. I will have compassion
on whom I'll have compassion. So then it's not of him that
will it. It's not of him that run it.
It's of God that showeth mercy. For the Scripture said to Pharaoh,
even for this same purpose have I raised you up that I might
show my power in thee and that My name might be declared throughout
all the earth, therefore hath he mercy on whom he will have
mercy, and whom he will he hardeneth. Thou wilt say then unto me, Why
doth he yet find fault, or who hath, or who can resist his will? What's this? Nay, but, O man,
who art thou that replyest against God? Shall the thing formed say
to him that formed it, Why have you made me thus? Hath not the
potter power over the clay of the same lump to make one vessel
under honour and another under dishonour? If God wants to take
out of the same lump and make a flower vase for the king's
palace or a spit tomb for the pool hall, that's God's business.
Who art thou that replies against God? When God opens a sinner's
eye to see his authority and his power and his ownership of
all things, it shuts that sinner's mouth about divine sovereignty. It shuts his mouth. Rebellion
against God's sovereignty, rebellion against God's ownership, rebellion
against God's right to reign was the first sin of heaven and
the first sin of earth. If you'll turn to Isaiah 14,
I'll show you what Satan's first sin was. Satan's sin, Isaiah
14, verse 12. God said, How art thou fallen
from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning? He was really something.
He was really great, powerful, beautiful. How art thou fallen? Isaiah 14, 12. How art thou cast
down to the ground, which did weaken the nation? Thou hast
said in thine heart, and this is where it took place. It took
place in the heart. That's where the sin took place.
This is the first sin. Thou hast said in thine heart,
I will ascend into heaven. I'm going to exalt my throne
above the stars of God. I will sit also upon the mount
of the congregation in the sides of the north. I will ascend above
the heights of the cloud. I'll be like God. He's saying here that I will
not allow God to be sovereign. I will not allow God Almighty
to be omnipotent. I will not allow Him to rule
over me. I have a right to say what I want to do and what I
will let God do. And that's what Satan said to
Adam and Eve. Satan said to Eve that God said
that you shall not eat of all the trees. That's what God said.
Eve said that's right. That's what God said. You shall
not heed of the tree of life, the tree of knowledge of good
and evil." Why he said that? Did God say, you'll die? She
said, yes. He said, well, you won't die, you'll be like God.
You'll be like God. You'll be as God's. And that
was the idea when she took that fruit and when she gave it to
her husband. Resisting God's authority, God's sovereignty. Let me show you something here.
Now you listen to this a moment. It was as the king that Herod
sought to kill the babe in Bethlehem's manger. He said, go find that
one who is king of the Jews. He didn't care how many prophets
the Jews brought forth or how many preachers they brought forth
or how many leaders he wanted to get rid of that king. It was
as the king that they rejected him when they cried, we will
not have this man reign over us. It was as the king that they
cried for his death. They said to Pilate, we have
no king but Caesar. It was as the king that the soldiers
mocked him in the soldiers' hall. They mocked him as they put a
crown of thorns on his head and a scepter in his hand and a dirty
red robe on his back and fell in front of him and cried, Hail,
King of the Jews. It was as the king that they
crucified him and wrote up over his head in Latin, Hebrew and
Greek, this is Jesus of Nazareth, he's king of the Jews. They rejected his sovereignty. And I say when God Almighty does
a work of grace in a man's heart, When he really brings that sinner
to see who he is, who the sinner is, when he brings the sinner
to see who God is, he shuts that sinner's mouth about his own
morality. He shuts that sinner's mouth
about his free agency. That sinner realizes he is in
bondage, he is a captive. And the more he wiggles, the
tighter the bonds grow on his soul. And he shuts his mouth about
God's right to leave him there or take him out. He shuts that
sinner's mouth about God's right to condemn him and God's right
to save him. We got ourselves in this mess
and we justify God, David said, in his condemnation. We justify
him in his wrath. That leper didn't say, Jesus,
you ought not let me become a leper. He said, Jesus, if you will,
you can make me clean. Now, if you will, you can pass
me by. But if you will, you can make
me clean. Now turn to Job 1, and I'll close. When God sends his word to a
man's heart, he realizes who God is and who he is. He shuts his mouth about the
things that take place in his life. He shuts his mouth to murmuring
and complaining, finding fault with God's will. In the first
chapter of Job, this man Job had lost everything. He'd lost
his wealth, he'd lost his property, he'd lost his health, he'd lost
his family. He lost his wife, he lost his
friends, he was alone. And it said in verse 21 of Job
1, Job arose, verse 20, and rent his mantle and shaved his head
and fell down on the ground and worshiped. And he said, Naked
came I out of my mother's womb, and naked shall I return thither
the Lord gave. And the Lord hath taken away,
blessed be the name of the Lord. In all this Job sinned not, nor
charged God foolishly. There's a man who has seen the
Lord. There's a man who's seen the
Lord. There's a man to whom God had revealed himself. There's
a man who had entered into what we call the fourth great awakening. In the book of 1 Samuel, chapter
3, I want you to look at this. Eli was a great servant of God,
a mighty servant of God. God raised up young Samuel to
take his place in Israel. And God came to young Samuel
one night, and He said, Samuel, He said, Here am I, Lord. He said, Samuel, I'm going to
destroy Eli's family. He said, Eli's sons have perverted
the worship of God. They have gone astray. They've made themselves vile,
and Eli hasn't restrained them. He hasn't frowned upon what they've
done. I'm going to kill them. And Samuel
went back to sleep. He lay there that night, and
he feared to tell Eli what God had said to him. And finally,
in verse 16 of 1 Samuel 3, Eli called Samuel and said, Samuel,
my son, he said, here am I. He said, what is it that the
Lord has said to you? Don't hide it from me. God do
so to thee, and more also if you hide it from me. And Samuel
told him everything God said. He had nothing from him, and
this is what he replied. All these years I've served the
Lord, and I've preached, and I've given, and I've taught Sunday
school, and I've sung in the choir and played the instruments,
and now look what's happening to me. No, that wasn't what he
said. And he said, this is the thanks
I get for all that I've done for Jesus. I've won souls to
Jesus, done this, that? No, he didn't. And he said, It
is the Lord. Let him do what seemeth him good. There's a fellow that's seen
the Lord. There's one more. This man who
had seen God knew that God makes no mistakes, that God will work
everything out for his glory and for our good. And he shut
his no reply against God, no charging God with foolishness,
he just shut his mouth. And all he had to say was, well,
it's the Lord, let him do what he will. So I say, according
to the scriptures, that when the law comes in the hands of
the Holy Spirit, every mouth will be stopped, and all the
world will become guilty before God. And men will stop talking
about their works and their morality. They'll stop replying against
God's sovereignty. They'll stop talking about their
freedom. And they'll quit murmuring and
complaining against God's providence. And you know what? God will open
their mouths to do something else. Turn to Romans 10, verse
9. God will open their mouths to
do one thing. God will open their mouths to
do one thing. Romans 10, 9. that if thou shalt
confess with thy mouth Jesus to be Lord, and believe in thine
heart God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved."
Well, the day is coming when every knee is going to bow and
every tongue is going to confess that he's Lord, to the glory
of God the Father. in heaven, in earth, in hell,
every knee shall bow and every tongue shall confess that he
is Lord. Our Father in heaven, anoint
the message with the power of the Holy Spirit. The heart is
deceitful, we know that, desperately wicked, above all things. We
cannot say, if I know my heart, for apart from Thy mercy and
Thy grace we don't know our hearts. But, O God, Thou knowest all
things, and we can say with the Apostle Peter, Thou knowest that
we love Thee. Thou knowest, O God, that our
motive is to be true to Thy Word and to the souls of those who
hear us. Help us to glorify the name which
is above every name. Help us to be able to say with
Ezra of old, I am ashamed. I blush to lift my face to thee,
O God. My sins overwhelm me. Thy majesty
and thy holiness overwhelm me. I am a man of unclean lips. I
dwell among a people of unclean lips. O God, be merciful unto
us. Reach down in this mire of corruption,
filth and guilt, and lift us and wash us and bathe us. Let
it be the time of love. And by Christ's precious blood,
make us whole. Let His blood be propitiation
for us on the mercy seat we pray. Minister to us. In Christ's name,
amen.

That Every Mouth May Be Stopped

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That Every Mouth May Be Stopped

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