Number 141, look ye saints, the
sight is glorious. Look, ye saints, the sight is
glorious. See the man of sorrows now. From the fight return victorious. Every knee to him shall bow. Crown him, crown him, crowned the Savior. Angels crown Him, rich the trophies
a judge brings. In the seat of power, enthrone
Him, while the vault of heaven rings. Crown Him, crown Him,
? Sinners in derision, ground Him
? ? Mocking lust, the Savior's claim ? ? Saints and angels crowd
around Him ? ? Own His title, praise His name ? ? Ground Him,
ground Him, spread abroad the people ? ? Hark those verse of acclamation
? ? Hark those loud triumphant chords ? ? Jesus takes the highest
station ? ? Oh what joy the sight affords ? ? Crown Him, crown
Him, King of kings and lords ? After scripture and prayer we'll
sing your handout complete in thee. Romans chapter 3. We'll read verses 1 through 9. What advantage then hath the
Jew, or what profit is there of circumcision? Much every way,
chiefly, 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 but every man a liar, as
it is written, that thou mightest be justified in thy sayings,
mightest overcome when thou art judged. But if our unrighteousness
commend the righteousness of God, what shall we say? Is God
unrighteous that 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 judged as a sinner? And not rather, as we have slanderously
reported, 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, and no wise. We have before
proved, both Jews and Gentiles, that they are all under sin.
Let's pray. Our Father in heaven, most gracious,
glorious Lord, plenteous in mercy, tender and piteous toward your
children, knowing what they are and remembering that they're
dust. Yet your testimony is that you have loved them with an everlasting
love. And because you've loved them
thusly, you've drawn them to yourself. You've chosen them
in Jesus Christ before the world began. predestinated them to the adoption
of children by Jesus Christ into yourself, and whom you predestinated, you
called, and whom you called, you glorified, and whom you glorified,
you justified. We thank you, Father, that in
the matter of the salvation of our souls, that you'd not allow
us to take part in it, that you fixed it full and free, in the
eternal councils and purposes of God and executed it in time on the
cross of Calvary. We thank you, Father, for salvation. We thank you for the truth of
the gospel and it sets things in order and clears things up.
Pray for those who are sick, those who have been added, as
Brown has been added to the Let's pray for her, pray for Teresa's
sister, and the others who requested prayer. Lord, we ask your help
for them. Pray for ourselves this hour,
as you might be pleased to give us true worship, fix our hearts
and minds and eyes upon Jesus Christ, who is worthy of all
praise and honor. It's in his name we pray, amen. ? Complete in Thee, no work of
mine ? May take, dear Lord, the place of Thine ? Thy blood hath
pardoned, bought for me ? And I am now complete in Thee ? Yea,
justified, O blessed Thou and sanctified, salvation wrought,
thy blood hath pardoned, bought for me, and glorified I too shall
be, complete in thee, no more shall sin, thy grace hath come,
? Within thy voice have been the tiptoe clean ? ? And I shall
stand complete in thee ? ? Yea, justified, O blessed thought
? ? And sanctified, salvation wrought ? ? Thy blood and part
? ? And glorified I too shall be ? Complete in thee each want
supplied ? And no good thing do you deny ? Since thou my portion,
Lord, will be ? I ask no more, complete in thee And sanctified salvation wrought
Thy blood hath poured, poured for me, and glorified tribes and tongues assembled
are, among thy chosen will I be, and thy right hand complete in
thee. Ye just divine, O blessed thought,
and sanctified salvation wrought, thy blood hath and glorified I too shall be. Let us pray. Father again we
come in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, the unspeakable gift
that you've given to your children freely and with him freely giving
them all things. We thank you, Father, that you
take such good care of us to watch over us, care for our every
need, and give us what we need in more in abundance. Let us
return unto Thee now that which You've given us with joy and
thanksgiving in our hearts. We pray in Christ's name. Amen. the the you your attention back to Romans
chapter 3. I heard a story about a lawyer
one time. It was about the fact that a
lawyer should never ask the question that he doesn't have the answer
to. And they never do. They always have the answer before
they ask the question. The story was that this fellow
was on trial for biting off someone's ear. The lawyer for the defense thought
he had him cornered because the guy had not actually seen him
bite off the guy's ear. So he got him on the witness
stand and said to him, we know this guy's ear was bitten off,
but did you see this man bite off this man's ear? He said,
no, sir. He said, you're saying you did
not see him bite off this man's ear? He said, that's right. He
said, and this was what he shouldn't have asked. He said, well, what
did you see? He said, I saw him spit it out. Paul was a lawyer, and he always
anticipated the questions that nature and religion would ask
in reference to the truth that he set forth. You see that over
and over again in the Word of God. when he talked about the
election of grace and set forth the singular passage that says
this is for the purpose of God's election might be glorified when
he talked about Jacob and Esau being in the womb having not
done any good or evil that the purpose of God according to election
might stand he said that the elder shall serve the younger
Jacob have I loved and Esau have I hated Now he knows that's a
tremendously powerful and absolute doctrine. And he knew by the inspiration
of the Holy Spirit there would be some resistance to that truth.
So he addressed the question that men would ask next. They
would say, that makes God unrighteous. So he said, is there unrighteousness
with God? God forbid. Now in this passage
of scripture we've read this morning, he addresses several
questions that are set forth by carnal mind. The title of
this message is carnal inquiry. If you spend some time with Paul's
epistles, you'll find that when he declared a doctrine that was
particularly offensive to the flesh, he proceeds to answer
objections that will most surely arise when the doctrine is preached.
had opportunity to talk to folks about the truth and set forth
the truth. You have heard these objections. They have come forth.
They have come forth. Man's mutable nature does not
deal well with things that are absolutely declared and absolutes
are not welcome to the natural mind. Nature prefers options
and offers and suggestions and debatable subjects, but when
faced with truth, It rails against it in one form or another. Paul
has just made it clear that Jews can no more be justified by the
law than the Gentile can be justified by nature. All those truths are
set forth in chapters one and two. In effect, he said that
Jews and Gentiles are actually in the very same boat in the
matter of justification, namely that they are shut up to the
will of God and Jesus Christ alone for justification. It happens
nowhere else. The righteousness of God, the
righteousness required by God, is revealed in the God-given
faith, or revealed to God-given faith, through the declaration
of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. The gospel concerns one
thing. It concerns His Son, the Lord
Jesus Christ. If you turn back to chapter 1,
this is how Paul introduces the subject that will be addressed
in Romans. He says, Paul, a servant of Jesus
Christ, called to be an apostle, separated unto the gospel of
God. Now, if you note, the next verse
is parenthetical. It's an explanation of what he
just said, but it's not necessary to the context in order to understand
what it meant. So you read verse 1 with verse
3, you'll understand, Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be
an apostle, separated unto the gospel of God concerning his
son, Jesus Christ. which was made of the seed of
David according to the flesh. The gospel concerns his son.
When we preach the gospel, we're preaching a person. We're preaching
the Lord Jesus Christ. Having slain every other righteousness
in the first two chapters of this book, but this righteousness places
Jews and Gentiles alike in the same jeopardy. The righteousness
that's set forth in the gospel puts the Jew and the Gentile
the same. It's obvious to the Jew that Gentiles are without
God. They believed that all along. They called them dogs. They were without hope. The Jews
were born to a Jewish tradition and law and have been notably
the only nation on earth that God has chosen for Himself. Everybody
else is in trouble. That's what they believe. What
Paul says is, you're just the same trouble. Carmel Mine has
some questions concerning what Paul has said. The first question
Paul knows they will ask is if we've kept the feasts and the
sacrifices, if we've been circumcised, if we are Abraham's seed and
this does not account for acceptance with God, what has been the use
of all that we have done? They ask that question in chapter
3. It says, What advantage hath
the Jew? What advantage has he? We've
done all this and God's chose us as his people. and you say
we're lost just like the Gentiles are. What advantage does it have
to being a Jew and being chosen as the nation of God? What advantage
then hath the Jew? What properties there of circumcision?
He said much every way. Much every way. Chiefly because
for unto them they were committed the oracles Paul's answer is
very distinctive here. He declares that the Jew had
a great advantage, but the context of the statement is that they
abused this advantage. The entire chapter is preceded
as one has shown that they have used the law for transgressing
the law. But Paul does not here deal with the feast and the ceremonies,
but singularly with something else. He says this, you've had
the oracles of God. This is the advantage you have.
What's he talking about? He's not talking about the ceremonies
and the law. He's not talking about the Old
Covenant. He's talking about the Old Testament. He's talking
about the Bible they have. This is the advantage they had.
This is a great advantage if you had the Bible. The advantage
that they had over the Gentiles was they had the testimony of
Christ in scripture and type and shout out for all those books
of the Old Testament. Our Lord had confronted the Jews
with the fact in his ministry that he was God, that he was
the Son of God, and that scriptures testified of him. He told those
who studied the scriptures, you do study the scriptures for in
them you think you find eternal life, but they are they which
testify of me, and you will not come to me that you might have
life. I already confronted him with that. They had refused to
believe that, that he was the Messiah, that he was the stone
that the builders refused, that he had been made the head of
the corner. The assumption of the Jew then is that since they
have not lived up to their contract, the entire matter of the promises
of God are nullified. That's the question. What advantage
do we have then? It all must be nullified. You're
saying it's all nullified. You're saying you had the word
of God, as is always in nature. Nature thrives on conditional
covenants, but the Apostle is taking the uncontestable testimony
of promise. That's what we have, brothers
and sisters. We have the promise of God. Our salvation is a promise. We're children of promise. We're
heirs according to promise. That promise, all the promises
are yea and amen in the Lord Jesus Christ. We have an uncontestable promise. Our Lord has magnified His word
above His name. We have the word of God. You
don't have anything else here. You say, I have faith. I'm glad
you do. Show it to me. Say, I have life. Show it to
me. I have Christian life. Show me. Explain that to me. You can't. What do you have? You have what God says. And God
has given you faith to believe it. That's a wondrous thing.
Verse 3 makes it clear that their unbelief has nothing to do with
the fulfillment of the promise. He says, For what if some did
not believe? Shall their unbelief make the
faith of God without effect? He says kind of the same thing
in Romans chapter 9. He says this, he says, I could
wish myself in verse three a curse from Christ for my brethren,
my kinsmen according to the flesh, who are Israelites, to whom pertaineth
the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving, the law,
the service of God, and the promises, who are fathers, of whom are
concerning the flesh, came, who is over all God, blessed forever,
amen, not as though the word of God has taken none effect,
for they are not all Israel, which are of Israel. neither
because they are the seed of Abraham are they children, but
in Isaac shall thy seed be called. For Isaac was born of the Spirit
and not of the power of the flesh. He makes it clear that unbelief
has nothing to do with the fulfillment of promise. Think about that.
They believed that unbelief did prevent them from receiving the
blessing of God. They believed that no promise
could be theirs unless they kept the promise or they kept the
word of God and obeyed. He said, and think about this.
Tell this to someone who wants to go under the law. Unbelief
has nothing to do with the promise of God. Faith has nothing to do with
the promise of God. The promise of God is set in
the stones of eternal counsel. and will not change. Under the
covenant handed down at Sinai, the blessings were tied to obedience.
The testimony of the written word was never conditioned upon
obedience. This book's not conditioned upon your obedience. The truth
of it, the fact of it, is not conditioned upon your obedience.
It's the truth, whether you obey it or not. It's the truth. The
law is not against the promises. It simply had nothing to do with
the promises being kept. The fulfillment of the promises
relied entirely on the faithfulness of God, and that alone. The unbelief
exhibited by the Jew concerning the Old Covenant did not make
the faithfulness of God a non-effect. God forbid. In verse 4 he says
this, But God forbid that ye let God be true, and every man
be a liar, as it is written, That thou mightest be justified
in thy saints, that thou mightest overcome when thou judgest. Where
did that come from? In Psalm 51. When David, who had sinned
against God, sinned against God said to God and when he said
your promise is going to be kept you'll be justified when you
judge me regardless because you'll keep your promise God is true
He is true to every promise He has ever made and always will
be. Man is a liar and a lie. He is lighter than vanity. The
first utterance that issues from man's mouth as soon as he is
ushered into this world is a prevarication. It is a lie. He comes forth from
the womb as soon as he is born speaking lies. The vanity of
man is that he would even think that the fulfillment of God's
Word would be somehow dependent upon him. What vanity! What vanity, what hubris for
someone to think that. But do not preachers stand in
the pool pits and tell men that God's power is only released
by their faith? Is not free will the cardinal
doctrine of religion? What else could possibly be meant
by the terms God's hands are tied or the only hands God has
is your hands? What could possibly else be meant? It's that this will not take
place unless you make it take place. That's what it means. These are
the lies from liars that believe the fulfillment of God's promises
is dependent upon them. Let God be true and all men be
liars. The example that Paul uses to
prove that God is true to His promises that men have nothing
to do with their fulfillment is David's sin with Bathsheba. God promised that the seed of
David would be the Messiah. We just read that in Romans 1
concerning His seed as the offspring of David. God promised that seed. David
grievously sinned. David grievously sinned against
God. But that did not alter the promise one week. It did not
change the testimony. It did not change the testimony. David knew this and confessed
that though his sin was worthy of punishment and God would be
right to do so, that God's Word was just and right and would
be fulfilled. When men judge that God is unrighteous
if he keeps his promise and seemingly overlooks the sins of men, David
declares that God is righteous to keep his promise regardless
of what men say or do because their sin and obedience was never
accounted as instruments in keeping the promise. As David lay in
the arms of Bathsheba committing adultery and soon to have her
husband slain, wicked David was the apple of God's eye and a
man after God's own heart, because that's what the Word said. See,
it's how God sees it is how it is. This fact presents another
problem to the natural mind. It addresses the matter of sin
and grace. seeing and grace question that arises in the natural mind
is does not my sin then increase the glory of god's grace i mean
david did all that and god gracious and gracious to him doesn't that
mean that if i sin a lot god will show more grace that's a
logical thinking and that's natural thinking if that were the case
would it not be more advantageous to the glory of god and his grace
if i sin more And if that is the case, how
can God take vengeance on me if my sin actually is the source
of his honor? That's what he says in verses five through seven.
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 abounding through my lying
to his glory, why yet am I also judged as a sinner? It's illogical
thinking. That's the question that would
arise. How can God punish sin in one instance and magnify His
grace and justice by forgiving it in another instance? How can
God judge me as a sinner if my sin actually glorifies His grace?
That's the question nature asks. These are all natural questions
to which the singular answer is the substitutionary death
of the Lord Jesus Christ. However, religion does not see
it that way because they have no clue what happened on Calvary.
They don't have a clue. Listen to them talk. Religion
assesses that the doctrine of particular selective grace opens
the floodgates of Elijah. That's what they say. You preach
grace. And I've had this said to me. Had this said to me. Look at a religious man and say,
your works, your righteousness, your life, your will, nothing
about you has anything to do with your salvation. Only the
grace of God has to do with your salvation. And they say, well, that just,
that ain't right. can't be right. That would just
make men go out and want to sin all they want to. Well, you pretty
much sin all you want to now, don't you? Anybody holding a
gun to your head? No. But those who have been touched
by the grace of God know they're a sinner. And when they see that, and we
don't often do, like we ought to. But when we do, we are enamored
with the grace of God. Overwhelmed by it. Amazed by
it. And God would have something
to do with someone like us. And that's how His grace works. Religion assesses that the doctrine
in particular is selective grace, electing grace. opens the floodgates
of licentiousness. That's what they say in verse
8. And not rather as we slanderously reported, as some affirm that
we say, let us do evil that good may come, whose damnation is
just. Those who preach the truth of the sovereign grace of God
and those who believe it are slandered. Religion declares
that such folks preach that men ought to sin that grace may abound.
That's a lie, but that's what they believe. or that men should
do evil that good may come. That's a logical reasoning because
men do not understand what grace is. Religious men naturally believe
that the message of grace is scandalous and to the natural
mind it is. It makes no sense that the promises
of God are kept no matter the violence of the instrument that
He uses. He uses us, don't He? My goodness. I don't affect his promises.
I'm thankful that it doesn't. It seems scandalous to the natural
mind that while David dishonored God with his horrible sin, that
he was still the apple of God's eye, a man after God's own heart,
and the promised progenitor of the Messiah. It seems scandalous. Natural men want to believe that
God uses pure and pious and holy men to do his bidding. But just
the opposite is naturally true because no such men actually
exist in the world. Before he goes on to say the
next verse, verse 10, there's an unrighteous. No, not one. No, not one. Men cannot abide
the fact that God has chosen the worst to save and disregarded
the society's best, but that's how it works. Those who claim
God's dealings to be unjust and declare that the teachings of
grace lead to sin are damned, he says. and justly so. The fact is that we are not condemned
and they who are condemned are no different at all, naturally. We're exactly the same. As far
as character, honor, rectitude, there's no difference in me than
the gutter drunk No difference than the lovely
women here, than the whore on 42nd Street in New York City.
And no difference, naturally. If there's a difference, it's
God's grace. Who maketh thee to differ? And
what hast thou that thou hast not received? You have received
a white edict of abortion, thou hast not received it. Jews and
Gentiles alike are all under sin, Paul says. If there is any
difference in their eternal state, it must be by the righteousness
of God revealed in the gospel from faith to faith. Men do not
understand substitution, so they are bound to misinterpret grace.
All men by nature are sinners, and some men by grace are saints.
Some men are left to their own devices, and some men are selected
for gracious salvation. Some men will pay for their own
sins, and some will have had their sins paid for by a substitute. In both cases, God will show
himself to be perfectly righteous and just. If you believe this,
if you preach this, if this is the object of your affection,
it will be the object of the world's slander. You can count
on it. Because there's a part of us,
our old man, that has difficulty with this to this day. and fights
it to this day. Thank God he has saved us by
his grace and given us his spirit to believe it's true. But the
old men, they fight this to the day we die. You don't think that's
true? Sometimes you think about when
you walk in and you see somebody in a restaurant or something,
they do something, you think, well, that's a sorry piece of sorts.
Now you're the sorry piece of sorts, aren't we? Amazing grace. How sweet the
sound. It saved a wretch like me. God
bless you.