The condition has not changed,
maybe improved a little bit, but it's still about the same. Fred said that he thinks the
sweat might have gone down his leg a little bit, which would
be good, but he started his medication the day before yesterday, right? And he takes a pill every 28
days. No, he takes two pills a day. Oh, I thought he only took two
pills. And every 28 days he has to go back. Oh, okay. I stand corrected. It takes two
pills every day for 28 days. Is that right? It goes back and
gets worse. OK. But they're supposed to work
particularly for his type of cancer, which is a rare type
of lymphomas. And remember, continue to remember
him in your prayers. And the others also. Seek the
Lord's help. Do you ever get that thing kicked
out on your leg? No, I'll go this month. Sometime this month? Next week. OK. Okay, let's begin our worship
service with hymn number 40, Great is thy faithfulness. Great is thy faithfulness, O
God my Father. There is no shadow of turning
with thee. Thou changest not, but your passions
they will not. As thou hast been, thou forever
wilt be. Great is thy faithfulness, Praise
thy faithfulness. Morning by morning new mercies
I see. All I have needed thy hands have
provided. Praise thy faithfulness, Lord,
unto me. Summer and wintering, springtime
in harvest. Sun, moon, and stars in their
four shades of black. Joy with a victor in my year
of weakness. to thy great faithfulness, mercy
and love. Praise thy faithfulness. Praise
thy faithfulness. Morning by morning new mercies
I see. All I have need thy Therefore, I pray. Praise thy faithfulness, Lord,
unto me. Pardon for sin and peace that
endureth. Thine own dear presence, dear
unto God. Saint Martin made a bright hope
for tomorrow. This year's all right with 10,000
beside. Great is thy faithfulness. Great is thy faithfulness. Morning by morning, new mercies
I see. All I have need, I have had for
my days. Great is thy faithfulness, Lord,
unto me. And if you're reading in prayer,
we'll sing number 352. After setting forth in both Jew
and Gentile, our centers before God, all of us are asked the
question, what penance did you have to pass? at least a temporary
relationship with God. What advantage then hath the
truth? What profit is there to the circumcision? Much every way chiefly because
that unto them was committed the whole portion of God. That's
the teaching of God. But what if some did not believe?
Shall their unbelief make the faith of God without faith? God
forbid, may God be true. that God be true in every man,
and a liar, as it is written, that thou mightest be justified
in thy sayings, and mightest overcome when thou judgest, and
thou art judged. But if I run unrighteousness,
and commit unrighteousness from God, what shall we say? Is God unrighteous, and take
vengeance? I speak as a man, God forbid. But then how shall God judge
the world? For if the truth of God is more founded through my
life than His glory, why yet am I judged as a sinner? And
not rather, as we slanderers report it, as some of them that
we say, let us do evil that good may come, whose damnation is
just? What then? Are we better than
they? No in, no wise, for we have been
proved, both Jews and Gentiles, that we are all under sin. As
it is written, there is none righteous, no, not one. There
is none that understandeth. There is none that seeketh after
God. They are all gone out of the
way. They are together become unprofitable. There is none that
doeth good, no, not one. Their throat is an open sepulchre,
when their tongues have been used to The poison of Aspes is
under their lips, whose mouth is full of cursings and bitterness. Their feet, which shed blood,
destruction and misery are in their ways. And the way of peace,
had they not known, there is no fear of God before their eyes. Now we know that whatsoever the
law saith, saith that if they are under the law, that every
mouth might be stopped, and all the words, and become guilty. There shall be no flake justifying
his son by the law that is the knowledge of the Son of God. Our Lord and Heavenly Father,
we praise you and thank you for your great mercy for good and
wretched sinners. All their sin flowed from unbelief. Not caring for the things of
God, nor seeking God, nor knowing God, nor understanding God. Yet in their own way and desire they believe they
have carried the righteousness of God by their knees. Paul shuts that thinking down
and sends everything to the ship of Jesus Christ. Father, we pray
for our saviors. We pray for each other. That
we might look to Christ alone for our salvation. And trust
that your word has spoken truth to our hearts and minds. It ever
reminds us that in our sin, Father, we pray for those who
are sick. Pray for his quick healing and
return to us. Pray for the others who requested
prayer, Lord. You are our strength and our
joy. Your great presence of grace, always in time of trouble. Help
us, Lord, to know that you will ever lead you stand with us. You fixed
our minds and hearts upon Jesus Christ so that you'll not depart
from us to do us good. And you fixed it so we'll not
depart from you. Rest this time together today,
for you're holy. Get honor and glory from yourself.
You're worthy to be praised. It's in the name of Jesus Christ
we ask these things. Number 352, Jesus, lover of my
soul. Jesus, lover of my soul, take me to thy bosom, child. While the heathen barge forth,
while the tempest stirs, I'd be o'er my Saviour's side,
Till the storm of life is past, Sailing to the heaven's guide,
Who'll receive my soul at last. Mother, nephews, there I lie,
Thanks my helpless soul, Believe me not, Lord, still support
and comfort me. All my trust in Thee is faith. All my help from Thee I bring. Lover, my, be peaceful still
with the shadow born. Thou, O Christ, are all I want,
More than all within my mind. Raise the fallen to the king,
Heal the sick within the mind. Just and holy is Thy Name, I
am all Thy righteousness, All simple of sin I am, powerful
of truth and grace. Let His grace with me expound,
grace to cover all my sin. Let the heathen spring to bow,
may the heat be filled with me. Thou art life, the fountain of
life, freely let me drink of thee. Swing thou up within my
heart, rise to all eternity. Let us pray. Our Father, give
me approach in the name of Christ, our blessed Savior, our King
and our Lord, our Sovereign and our Lord, our Elder Brother and
our Best Friend. We thank you, Father, for His
shed blood that put away our sin. We thank you, Father, that
all things that pertain to life God, let us have this freely
given to us, Father, in heaven, in whom there is no barrier,
shall return it. Let us return unto thee that
which belongs to you, that which you freely give us, with joy
and thanksgiving, we pray Christ's name. Amen. So, The words of these first 20 verses
of Romans chapter 3 can scarcely be read by a child of God and
not be reminded of the absolute sovereignty of God and His salvation.
For it clearly sets forth that there is nothing in us, of us,
or about us that can ever, in all our days, upon this earth,
recommend us to God. Now Paul is dealing with the
unbelief of the infidel, the unbelief of the Jew and the Gentile
here in this chapter. And the remedy for that unbelief
is God-given faith in the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. Paul
in the first part of this chapter is addressing unbelief. He has
not suddenly begun do so, but has in chapters 1 and 2 declared
that both Jews and Gentiles are by nature unbelievers, sown under
sin, and all under sin, and concluded in sin. Now before he sets forth
this fact, he declares that the gospel is what is justified beneath
in all unbelief, whether it is manifest by Jews or Gentiles,
it is unbelief of one thing. in his unbelief of the gospel. Now what I just read to you is
harsh word, but it's part of the gospel. The answer is set
forth in the latter part of the chapter. It sets forth the gospel
of the successful accomplishment of the Lord Jesus Christ. Back
in chapter 1, verse 17, it says, speaking of the gospel,
where therein is the righteousness of God, Unbelief, however, is
not the absence of belief. It is the absence of faith in
Jesus Christ. It is the absence of belief in
the gospel. Non-believers believe a whole
bunch of stuff. I was a non-believer for many
years and I had a number of beliefs and a lot of them had to do with
what I thought about God. A great deal of them did. I use the word cannot, they cannot
believe, because some are under the notion that faith is little
more than a change of opinion, or that unbelief can change to
belief, and it cannot. Your unbelief will never be believed. If you know anything about the
gospel of God's grace, you know that there remains in you an
old nature that is an unbeliever, and will never believe the gospel.
the old nature, the old man in us that will never believe the
gospel. Thank God that he has given us experience and we by
that spirit believe the gospel of Jesus Christ. Unbelief is
the plague that still brings great pain to the heart of the
believer. Unbelief is the nature of humanity. Belief is the gift
of grace and is the mode of operation for the justified man. The justified
man is the man whom God has made righteous by Christ, being made
righteousness to him apart from anything other than the will
of God the Father, the work of the Son, and the application
of it by the Holy Spirit. So if a man glories, he must
glory in the Lord. He cannot glory in himself. The
righteousness spoken of, the only righteousness by which men
are accepted before God, is revealed, it says, from faith to faith. This may seem a bit confusing,
but the last part of the verse defines its meaning. It is written
that the just shall live by faith. That is, the justified. It is written that the just shall
live by faith. This shows that the righteousness
of God That is, the manner by which God justifies sinners is
revealed to faith by revealing that it's not obtained by faith.
It's not obtained by faith. But it's a product of justifying
righteousness. Therein is the righteousness
of God revealed from faith to faith. It's a product of justifying
righteousness which is wholly the act of God by the successful
work of Christ. Why are we righteous before God? God made us to be, declared us
to be, put us in the category of being. We are righteous before
God because Christ is our righteousness. His name shall be called the
Lord, our righteousness. The Lord, our righteousness.
Jehovah-seeker. The Lord, our righteousness.
And it goes on to say in Jeremiah 33, 19, and she shall be named
by which she, the church, shall be called. Same name, the woman,
our righteousness. Paul does not say that those
who live by faith shall be justified, but that the justified live by
faith. Men believe, if they believe,
because they are justified. That's why they believe, they're
justified. Man does not become a believer because he believes.
He believes because God made him a believer. and put him among
what is called the sheep of God. Our Lord made that clear to those
religious men. He said, you don't believe, you're
unbelievers because you're not my sheep. My sheep are believers. My sheep hear my voice and they
follow me and I give them eternal life. And what follows in the
remainder of chapter 1 and chapter 2 is that Paul proved that all
men, whether Jew or Gentile, whether religious or intellectual,
all men by nature are unbelievers. They are not heard from God.
The Jews are the Gentiles. The Jews have the word of God,
but it has had no effect on them. They are both naturally unrighteous.
and unbelievers, and all who have been under sin. Righteousness is built through
the preaching of the gospel, and that gospel is about Jesus
Christ. That's what the gospel concerns. That's what Paul said
in the opening of Romans, in the book of Romans. He said the
gospel concerns Jesus Christ. Back in chapter one, he says,
Paul asserted that Jesus Christ called him an apostle separated
from the gospel of Christ, separated unto the gospel of Christ. Now
the next is a parenthetical phrase, so it can be difficult. But he's
talking about the promise, which was promised before by his prophets
in the Holy Scripture, as the gospel was promised in the Holy
Scripture. But if you take out the parenthetical expression
and read it this way, separating it from the gospel of God, concerning
His Son, Jesus Christ, the Lord. Now see, the gospel is about,
it's all about the Lord Jesus Christ. He's the subject of the
law, prophets of all the book of God. He's the subject of it,
that all the prophets gave witness to Him. This book is about Him.
In the first part of chapter 3, Paul sets forth the logic
of humanity. Human beings are interesting
creatures. God has given them intellect,
the power to look at something and decide about it, to cipher
it out, to look at it and come to a conclusion about what they
see. And he says the gospel, when
it's preached, they reach the wrong conclusion because of unbelief. The righteousness of the gospel
is revealed from faith to faith. Paul is not saying that unbelief
is logical. It is in fact manifest insanity
according to Ralph Warner. But unbelief when presented with
the gospel has a reaction that is born of human logic and reference
especially to the sovereign grace of God and the salvation of sinners.
God here takes the place of both, or rather Paul here takes the
place of both defender and attacker of the truth of grace. He speaks
as one who does not believe. He says, I speak as a man. And he speaks as one who is a
believer, defending both sides, or setting forth both sides to
determine which one is right. This is revealed in the little
parenthetical phrase at the end of verse 5. Paul says, I speak
as a man. He's not saying that in our speech
His warning is not inspired by the Spirit, but rather His warning
by the Spirit is inspired to reveal the reaction of natural
man when confronted with the truth. There is a reaction to
it. You've told people the Gospel. You've sat down with relatives
and explained or tried to tell them the Gospel, and you've seen
the looks on their face. You've seen the reaction. It's
because they've mulled over what you've said in their mind. And
they can't believe it. They simply can't believe it. Whether Jew or Gentile, unbelief
responds to the truth of grace in a specific pattern of logic. A specific pattern. The first
reaction of unbelief to the declaration of the gospel is that it relates
to the sovereignty of God and the salvation of sinners. This
is what the reaction is. If you say that the gospel is
the power of God and the salvation and a man can hear it and yet
not believe, And what advantage is the gospel? That's the logic.
That's the logic. Say it's the power of God unto
salvation now. God is sovereign. You're saying
God is sovereign then. And you preach the gospel and
that's his power revealed. And some don't believe it. What's it got to do with anything?
That's the logic. I said, oh, if God saves Suhumi
Weal, Why bother to preach? What is the advantage of having
the law of circumcision if keeping it does not make man righteous?
This is the lateral monster. The answer is plain. A man who
has heard the gospel is greatly advantaged. He's greatly advantaged
because not only has he heard the gospel declared that the
righteousness that God accepts is Jesus Christ therein revealed,
but also revealed is the wrath of God against sin. He's heard
this too. That's what Paul said in Romans chapter 1. I'm not
ashamed of the gospel because therein is the righteousness
of God revealed from faith in Christ. And therein is the wrath
of God revealed. That's all I believe. So he hears
the story. He knows it. And he's got to
reach a logical conclusion about this. Men hold back the righteousness
of God. destroy it or change it, but
they hold it back or oppose it, oppose the truth. There's a great
advantage in hearing the gospel, for you're successful with all
things in order. If a man is advantaged or disliked, or actually,
if the gospel of grace, at least he knows how things are, and
he knows what he doesn't believe. He knows what he doesn't believe.
Those who hear a false gospel, They come up with a logical answer
against that also, but they don't know the gospel, so they don't
know anything worth knowing. The gospel cannot be heard with
impunity. It always leaves a man without
excuse for his estate before God. This is the power of the
gospel. This is what Paul calls the victory
of the gospel. A saver of life unto some and
a saver of death unto others, but it's always powerful. It
always does its job. Now I'm not talking about some
kind of lightning bolt coming down from heaven. It does something
to your head and your heart when you hear it. Because it is the
power of God. But the first reaction is, well,
some people don't believe. Can't be too powerful. That's
the reaction. The next reaction of unbelief,
the gospel, is to make the truth of God's work and the work of
Christ to be the subject of man. and his efficaciousness is subject
to man. In verse 3 of chapter 3, he says
this, What if some do not believe? Shall their unbelief make the
faith of God without effect? Now the faith of God is the work
of the Lord Jesus Christ. Let's call it the faith of Jesus
Christ. If the truth is preached and
some believe not, some believe and some don't, then the truth
is then finally determined by what? It must be determined by
man. That's the logical response.
If you preach the truth and some get it and some don't, some believe
it and some don't, that's not the power of the truth. It can't
be that, man says. It must be man's will that makes
the difference. The truth is only the truth for
me if I believe it, people say. If I believe it. The final arbiter
of the matter of salvation is whether or not I believe what
you say. Paul says in verse 4, God will
be with you. That's the strongest Greek negative
there is. It's like four negatives in one
sentence. No, not never, don't never let
it be. That's what that means. The same
truth that declares that the salvation of the sinner assures
the righteousness of God and forgiveness of sin. That's the
beauty of the gospel. When the gospel is preached,
it does save the elated. But it also condemns the sinner. It is that same sun that melts
the wax and hardens the clay. The same sun. The same truth declared that
salvation sinners should use the righteousness of God in condemning.
And Paul uses an example of those words. He quotes it daily from
Psalm 51. He says in verse 4, God forbid,
let God be true, and every man be a liar. Now that's just a
statement there, it's an absolute. As it is written, where, Psalm
51, that thou mightest be justified in thy sins, and mightest overcome
when thou art judged. Now what he's quoting is from
Psalm 51, I think it's verse 5 or 6, where David says to God,
my sins are ever before you. I am against thee, and against
thee only, and against thee, and against thee only, I say
unto thee. So that when you judge me, you'll be right, whether
you put me in hell or put me in heaven. You'll be justified,
however you judge me. So he says that's what the gospel
does. David owns the fact that he's
a sinner before God and also owning that though he is one
of the elect, God would be justified if he eternally condemned him
for his sin. This is an understanding that
only one who knows the grace of God has. I am a child of God,
by His will, by His work, by His mercy, by His grace. But
if God put me in anger, it would not be unjust to do so, if He
just gave me a man under a tree. That's what my man understands.
David owns that fact. God is true, and all men are
liars. All who are sinners is of any
saving must be by the grace of God. Man's unbelief does not
make void the word of God. It reveals the truth that they
are, by nature, unbelievers. The gospel is the truth, so when
it's preached, the elect hear it and receive it, and it proves
those who don't believe that they're unbelievers. Because
it's the gospel that is believed. It's the gospel that reveals
the righteousness of God from faith to faith. Unbelief does
not affect the truth. I've preached and talked to people,
and I've had people come up to me and say, I don't believe it.
I mean, just right to my face, I don't believe it. Well, okay. What the gospel has done, it's
worked. It proved you're an unbeliever, just as it proves the children
of God are believers. truth reveals unbelief man does
not even know he's an unbeliever truly he does not know he's an
unbeliever until he hears the gospel he hears the gospel he
knows what he don't believe he knows what he won't believe if
that false gospel that leaves salvation up to men and their
will and their works and their religion and all that kind of
mess if that is But it doesn't prove anything to me. But the
gospel in its purity which says salvation is by God's work and
the work of the Lord Jesus Christ on Calvary's tree and nothing
else and you and I have nothing whatsoever to do with That strikes a note in the mind. And the mind says, I believe
that, or I don't believe that. That's the power of the truth. It has nothing to do with it.
It's merely the ability of man's will. The third reaction of unbelievers
to apply human life to the words of David. That's all there is
to it. Verse 5 says, 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 how shall God judge the world? For if the truth of God hath
more about it through my life than this Lord, why am I judged
as a sinner? The reaction goes something like
this, Well, if David said that His ownership of his sin enabled
God to be just to condemn him, and it stands to reason that
our sin honors God. Somehow our sin makes God merciful. Our sin makes God gracious. We should sin then so God would
show grace. Also, since our sin honors the
justice of God, how can He take vengeance on us for sinning? Our sin honors Him. That's the
logic of it. David said, well, if you judge
me and condemn me, your righteous will do so. And He didn't condemn
David. His sin must have honored God
somehow. His sin must have glorified God. So, if we sin, then we honor
God. So that's stupid. That's natural
thinking. If my lie results in His glory,
how can He judge the world, and how can He judge me as a sinner?
How can He judge me? If the Lord does not answer this
objection with what men would account as logical, He would
enforce that such objections result in slander against the
preachers of the gospel. He says, you're slandering me. Those who preach grace are slandered
as antinomians. That means against the law. Anti-nomos. They are accused of preaching
a message that will lead men to sin. Why do you think it makes sense?
If I say salvation is holy, it is made by Jesus Christ himself.
And where you sin, grace did much more about it. Where you
sin about it, grace did much more about it. Then come to a
natural conclusion that you preach them. That opens the floodgates
for people to do what they want to do. To be a bunch of sinners,
because then God's grace will abound for them. It's got to be the way that works.
That makes logical sense to the human mind. It does. It makes logical sense to the
human mind. So those who preach the gospel, especially get remarks
like this from those who preach a false gospel. They tell them
that what they do does matter for salvation, what they do does
account for salvation. They have salvation as something
as a starting point in your life of Christianity. The Christian
life. Show me that phrase. Show me
the idea of the Christian life. You either have life or you don't.
And if you have life, God gives you that life, and that life
is Jesus Christ. That's the life. Everything other
than that is dead. Plum dead, twice dead, plucked
up by the roots, graveyard dead, is what God in heaven says. Unbelievers
say that if salvation is all of grace, and grace is only for
sinners, then the more we sin, the more grace we'll receive. Such may not speak so specifically,
but I cannot count the times that folks have said to me that
the message I preach will lead men to do the worst. Not if they believe it. Now if
they don't believe it yet, if they take this sovereignty of
God as a gate to open to their sin, they're unbelievers. It's
as simple as that. to use God as an excuse for sin. And many people use the grace
of God for sin. They do. The fact is that man
has probably not preached, the person that has probably not
preached the gospel at all until the unbeliever accuses you of
saying, let us do evil, that good may come. You've probably
not preached the truth unless somebody I can't tell you the type of
stuff that he keeps saying. False prophecy, excuse me, false
prophet. He called me a false prophet
and he called me an antinomian. Because I'm against God. But unless you preach the truth,
unless you tell people the truth, you can get off. You can save
yourself. You can do that. You can tell
them a little bit of truth, but a little bit of truth is not
too much. You can, you know, use the right kind of language
with all the salvation in their hands. And they'll never be caught. If you tell them they're a sinner,
and they can do something about it, they're not getting caught.
You tell them, unless God sovereignly has chosen you for the foundation
of the world, unless Christ made himself to be your shield to
him, unless God has made Christ to be your righteousness, unless
Christ has died specifically to pay your sin debt and put
away your sin and nobody else's, and he didn't die for everybody,
and God don't love everybody, and the Holy Spirit's not calling
Yes, you tell people the truth. They'll be fine with you. But
if you tell them the truth, they'll say, that can't be right. The end of human logic is the
just damnation executed by God. There is a way. This seems right, I admit it.
But the end thereof are the ways And it seems right. It seems
logical. Paul answers such logic of unbelief
by simply stating the facts. The believer is no better than
the unbeliever? Why thank you. Scripture concludes
all under sin. He says, this is the truth about
me. This is the truth about you and I as we were born into this
world. apart from a work of grace, and
this is true still about our old man, there is none righteous,
no not one, there is none that understand, there is none that seek after
God, they are all gone out of the way, which is Christ, they
are together become There is none that doeth good. How many? No.
Not one. Their throat is an open sepulchre, an open
grave. Their tongues have they used to speak, although
men are liars and God is true. The poison of Ashes, which is
a deadly little snake, is under their lips. What they speak,
the words they take, if you believe them, they'll kill you. mouth is full of cursing. That's
not just cussing. That's wishing damnation on people.
That's warning somebody you don't like to go ahead on. Cursing and bitterness. If you want to define this nation
today, read the newspapers, listen to the news, listen to what men
and women young and old per se. We live in an absolutely bitter
society. People are bitter. About what,
I don't know. I guess it's because they don't
get their own way, but they're bitter. Bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed
blood, killing is rampant. Destruction, tearing down stuff. and misery. Find me a happy man
today. I'd sure like to meet him. Everybody's
got it right. Destruction and misery in their
way. The way of peace have they not known? Because they don't
know Christ. He established peace by the blood
of his cross. Peace with God. Peace that passes
knowledge and understanding. There is no fear of God before
God. part of the Lutheran Church of
America. They've rewritten some of the Bible. They're calling
God a non-binary God. So, everything it seems today,
every issue that people have somehow relates to sex. It does. It somehow relates to that. A non-binary
as it was unlikely LBGTQ God. Can you imagine Martin Luther
saying something like that? No fear, no respect, no worship,
no reverence for God. done. This is nature's logic. In the end, this is why it is
what it is. If then this is the case, no
man in and of himself can do anything about his state if this
is true. What must take place? God must
intervene. God must interrupt his career,
or else he will be eternally lost and rightfully so. There
is a righteousness revealed in the gospel, a righteousness received
through faith, a righteousness that faith knows and owns that
is by grace and not of our sins. It is a righteousness that is
a person, a person who is just to justify all for whom he died. And the issue is this, do you
believe it? And if you don't, then you're
an unbeliever. Father bless us to understand
and pray for us. I'm sorry.