Tonight we turn in our Bibles to Romans chapter 3 and we come to the end of this first section of Romans and it's been a long time developing this for good reason. This is the most, as I pray, the most severe indictment against man that we find all put in one together in the Scriptures and it just prepares us for everything that is to come. So tonight is the conclusion of the matter on the first section of the guilt section of Romans. So we'll consider together the first 20 verses of Romans 3. Let's give our attention to the Word of the Lord. Then what advantage has the Jew or what is the value of circumcision? Much in every way. To begin with, the Jews were entrusted with the oracles of God. What if some were unfaithful? Does their faithlessness nullify the faithfulness of God? By no means let God be true, though everyone were a liar, as it is written that you may be justified in your words and prevail when you are judged. But if our unrighteousness serves to show the righteousness of God, what shall we say? That God is unrighteous to inflict wrath on us, I speak in a human way. By no means. For then how could God judge the world? But if through my lie God's truth abounds to His glory, why am I still being condemned as a sinner? Why not do evil that good may come? As some people slanderously charge us with saying, their condemnation is just. What then? Are we Jews any better off? No, not at all. For we have already charged that all, both Jews and Greeks, are under sin. As it is written, none is righteous. No, not one. No one understands. No one seeks for God. All have turned aside. Together they've become worthless. No one does good. No, not one. Their throat is an open grave. They use their tongues to deceive. The venom of asps is under their lips. Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed blood. In their paths are ruin and misery. And the way of peace they've not known. There's no fear of God before their eyes. Now we know that whatever the law says, it speaks to those who are under the law. so that every mouth may be stopped and the whole world may be held accountable to God. For by works of the law, no human being will be justified in His sight since through the law comes knowledge of sin. May the Lord bless the hearing of His Word. Well, every year in Basel, Switzerland, there is a very perverse thing that takes place. It's a festival. And it's a festival that takes place over many days and it's full of drunkenness and it's full of sexual immorality. And what is so evil about the festival is that everyone comes to the festival and they wear masks so that no one can see their faces. And so these intoxicated people with masks on indulge themselves for days in the immorality. It was James Boyce who was attending this one time Not to be a part of that, but he was going through there. And he tells the story that he looked up on the wall and on the wall, the Salvation Army hung a big, a large sign over the city wall and it said, God sees behind your masks. That's a really good sort of segue into Romans 3 tonight. God sees behind the masks. this is essentially what Paul has been working toward since Romans 2. It was the problem of a masked, outward righteousness that the Jews had created. And last time we looked at it, God was saying to them, listen, it is not just that He's after. He's looking at the heart. And it's not a good thing. He demands purity in the Spirit. The circumcision of the heart is what the outward circumcision is pointing to that. And so this was a real indictment against the Jews who were wearing the masks. And tonight we come to this conclusion of the first part of Romans and we see it in verse 19. In verse 19 we have the grand conclusion in verse 19 and 20 of what he's been building to and it's a really important verse where he says that every mouth is stopped and the whole world is guilty before God because of this. No one can be justified in His sight by doing good works. There's the conclusion. It's everything we've been building to. Now, we obviously struggle with this or wouldn't take this much explanation, right? That's a fair statement. We really struggle with this. We don't readily accept this. And understanding this is absolutely necessary for the Christian faith. You really can't grasp the glorious news of what the gospel is until this has really sunk in the way that it should. Understanding about what the Bible has said about who we are and what we need. And if we don't listen to it or accept it as God has defined it, you're never going to accept the remedy as God has provided it. And trust me, a whole lot of Christians had not accepted Isaiah 53, the report. The report's not good about us. All had turned aside. And He laid on Him the iniquity of us all. So this is the report tonight. I had a really good question last Sunday night that I want to kind of begin with tonight. And it went like this. Well, it was a really good question. All of these calls then to holiness and a blameless life, how do I view them in light of all of this? Do they have no application to me since I can't do it? And therefore, it's just all about Jesus? I really like that. I think that's an important question to think about at this point because it's going to take a while to get to Romans 12. But it's a really important point because I haven't developed in Romans yet. Paul hasn't developed. The Spirit hasn't developed for you. The new life, has he? We're not there yet. We haven't developed sanctification. We haven't talked about sanctification. So don't read that back into where we are. I might conclude, as some Reformed Christians have done, and I've seen this, if we don't forget where we are in this whole thing, that we can do absolutely no good in the regenerate state. And so they transfer that life of freedom being under grace and we're not there yet. I'm not talking about this. It's important to note that in Romans 15, Paul is going to do just what the Heidelberg will say that whatever springs from the good root of faith is a good work and that there should be good fruits. And we understand that's by the power of the Spirit. But that's not where we are tonight. That's not what we're talking about tonight. None of that has been developed. What we're looking at tonight is the conclusion of the matter for those under the law. We're looking at the conclusion for the matter for those born under sin. We're looking at the conclusion of those in the first Adam who represents all of us. And we'll get there in Romans 5. We're looking at the conclusion of the matter now that we are dead in trespasses and sins after the fall, guilty before God. And God has a lot to say about this. God has a whole lot to say about this. The problem throughout the history of the Christian church, it's that, at least when we see this when Jesus arrived on the scene of history, is that the religious people, the Jews, had the greatest problem with this message. They had the greatest problem with this message. And listening to it and hearing it. And Paul is looking at that community, and we learn a lot from that community. Paul is looking at the Jews who had all of these exterior superior advantages that the pagans out there did not have. And the Jews didn't listen to what the Bible said about them in sin. So they took these advantages which should have been used to lead them to Jesus Christ and live by faith in the promises and instead they made them badges of their own human accomplishment and pride before God in the system of their own righteousness before God. And in doing this, they set up their own alternative system of their own righteousness. Under the law, they were trying to achieve that righteous standard and Paul has been leveling them trying to achieve that. He's tearing down the mask. And he's telling the truth of the matter that all might come to Christ who is the one who provides the righteousness that we need by imputation. We'll get there. This has been hard for the Jews. Last week we looked at he really went after their view of circumcision, which they saw as a badge that kept them out of hell. A VIP pass, if you will. And so Paul has really gone after all of these exterior advantages. And listen, this kind of message is hard for good, moral, upright, outstanding individuals who've been very successful in life, who've done well in life, who've led a generally good moral life, and who have a whole course of their life, you could say with the Jews, been in the synagogue, attended synagogue worship, had their children circumcised went through the whole system and they were very confident in the outcome of everything they were in the right church doing the right things everything was done correctly and these things became their confidence and look it's a big problem it's a big problem for us easily to slip into so paul knew that this was the problem of the jews that these blessings were not being used to lead them to Christ, but became things which they were putting their confidence in. And Paul, under the inspiration of the Spirit, he has been going after this. And remember, Jesus was hated by the Jewish nation because He was stripping them of their righteousness. He was going after their false masks. And remember last time in John 7, You guys were given the law of Moses and none of you keeps it. That was a severe indictment. So now Paul's ready to draw the conclusion. But before he does it, he deals with a few natural objections he knew people were going to raise. It's summarized this way. I'm just going to go through these somewhat quickly here. But if a Jew listened to Paul's arguments in this whole thing and actually was taking it in, what would be his concern? Well, it goes something like this. Paul, you sound like you're saying that all these blessings mean nothing. And actually, you sound like you're saying that having these things, having circumcision, are actually a greater condemnation upon us. That's what you sound like you're saying. Do you hear what you're doing to circumcision? So he anticipates this. And he deals with a few of these. And in verse 1 of chapter 3, he takes on that first objection he knew was in the Jewish mind. And he says, then what advantage has the Jew? Or what advantage is circumcision? He knew they were questioning that. Somebody was saying, what you are essentially promoting, Paul, is that there is absolutely no advantage to having circumcision. And we could transfer that tonight, couldn't we? What you're essentially saying, Paul, is that there is no advantage to Christian baptism. And that we are no better place than the pagans out there. What good is all this then? What good is being here tonight? Be careful, Paul, how you're presenting this. Be careful. Now it's interesting that he raises this. If our calling, in terms of these external privileges, if they aren't the guarantees, and if baptism itself does not wash and save, what's the profit? We've heard this accusation. Is there any benefit? And Paul answers that. Well, there's much in every way. There's a real big benefit to this. To begin with, the Jews were entrusted the oracles of God. And what Paul was essentially doing here was saying they were given the words of life. They were handed the Scriptures. They had the Old Testament. And they had all of these words that God inspired. But the issue is, what did the Law and the Prophets testify about? That's the issue. Jesus told us all the Law and the Prophets were about who? And the Psalms. Him. They foretold of the coming Messiah. And prophets like Jeremiah and prophets like Isaiah and Amos and Obadiah, these guys stood up in worship services very similar to this, and they proclaimed the Gospel. They announced about the coming Messiah. They told people to believe in the coming Messiah. Hebrews tells us the Gospel was preached to Israel out in the wilderness. We take for granted what they knew. They knew a whole bunch. All of the Scriptures then were handed to them that they should receive these promises by what? Faith and believe. But with some of them, that didn't happen, did it? And you'll notice Paul uses that. Some here. They use them as badges to justify themselves. And Paul's point is to say, these things don't have the ability to do that. They don't have the ability to do that. You've put confidence in things that don't have the ability to forgive and to wash. So you haven't understood the problem yet, Jews. And so Paul anticipates another argument. He says, well, if you are saying that these oracles have the intention of leading us to faith, what if some were unfaithful? Does their faithfulness nullify the faithfulness of God? So in other words, If it's profitable to be a Jew and it's profitable to be circumcised, which it was, it marks you as in covenant relationship with the Lord. If they had the words of life, what about those who didn't believe, Paul? What does that do to the faithfulness of God? Has God really been faithful to His promises? Where's that faithfulness? And it's interesting what Paul does at this point. I wish I had time to really develop this tonight further, but he quotes something here. Let God be true and every man a liar, as it is written, that you may be justified in your words and prevail when you are judged. Do you know where that is taken from? Well, that's the big psalm of David, isn't it? And it was something that David realized about himself. when he committed that awful sin with Bathsheba, did he blame God for that? No, he didn't blame God for that. David said, you're just to condemn. You condemn. And Paul is raising that here. Paul is showing that here to say you can't blame God for sin and unbelief. We can't just chalk it up and blame Him for that. God is never to blame when someone doesn't take these benefits and receive them by faith and they scorn them. That was their own choice to do so. It's their own choice. That's what Paul is raising here. Now there's one more. Well, if you're saying we're so bad so that we need a different righteousness to validate the righteousness of God, He can't be angry with us. He can't be angry with us. Verse 5, if our unrighteousness serves to show the righteousness of God, what shall we say? That God is unrighteous to inflict wrath on us? I speak in a human way. You know this one. You know this one well. If our sin is what brings about the grace of God in our lives, how could God ever judge us? Sin then must produce a good end, Paul. and he anticipates that someone's going to come along and say, well, why not just sin? It's all for good. Just go ahead and live it up. You guys are always talking about this grace thing. You're grace boys. See what you're doing? See what you're doing? His glory will be more shown, right? If we just live it up. And Paul says, well, if I'm suggesting that, then I just throw out the whole doctrine of judgment. It doesn't matter. We overturn the whole Christian religion. God's no longer a judge. And you know I'm not promoting that. Now, Paul has run through the problem of the Gentiles. He's run through the problem of the Jews. He's removed all of their arguments. And finally, he makes the single great point tonight. There's no excuses, you guys. There's no excuses before this holy God. Here's the problem. Here's how bad things are. So now after all of this, he gives the verdict. The verdict begins in verse 9. All are under sin. All by nature are guilty in the eye of God's holy justice. And he doesn't just give the verdict. Now he explains it. And I mean, this is not flattering, beloved. This is hard. Throughout time, there have been three positions about man. You know what they are. First is that he's basically good. Ronald Reagan's burial site is the inscription, I know in my heart that man is good. It's one view. That's a typical worldly view of man. The second is that man is just kind of sick and he has this propensity to evil and at times he gives in, but it's just kind of a disease that he needs to get healed from. That's a very common view in the church today. So when Adam sinned, it just only really affected himself and we are born into the kind of same situation of Adam and our environment promotes sin and when it comes to sin, you know, it is your personal choice by what you're exposed to. That's a common view. The third view is the view no one likes. Man is totally dead and there is absolutely no spiritual life there at all. Dead. Totally depraved. Inherited from Adam. Original sin. He is dead to anything spiritual. Now tonight I want to ask you the question, which one is Paul advancing? Look at verse 10. All are under the power of sin as it's written. None is righteous, no, not one. No one understands. No one seeks for God. all have turned aside they have together become worthless no one does good not even one their throat is an open grave they use their tongues to deceive the venom of asps is under their lips their mouth is full of curses and bitterness their feet are swift to shed blood in their paths are ruin and misery and the way of peace they've not known there is no fear of God before their eyes I don't know what's more comprehensive than that. You notice the repetition there, boys and girls? No one, no one, no one, no one. It's over and over and over. And he's quoting Psalm 14. He's putting together some passages here from the Old Testament. And he gives a kind of beginning thesis to the whole thing. Here's the beginning thesis. There is none righteous. Meaning, no one can fulfill the demands of the law in God's sight. No one. And from here, he moves to the three things that we say that we know about man. He goes to the thoughts, words, and deeds. You've got those three categories here. Thought, which you connect to the heart, and the words, which connect to the mouth, and deeds, which connect to the feet. Those are the three categories from this main thesis. You have three categories here. He proves this. And so he begins there. In verse 11 with the first one, what does he say in terms of the heart or the mind? No one understands. No one seeks. Everyone's turned aside. Worthless. That is indicting. That by nature, everyone is totally ignorant. Their minds are completely in the darkness. There is no one out there that makes a conscious choice for God. Get that? No one makes that choice. No one seeks. Everyone is turned away. Essence of sin being to miss the mark. They have all departed from the right path in Adam and their lives are unprofitable. No one does good. And so now he moves to words. Their throat is like an open tomb. You ever opened a tomb and look at a rotting corpse? I haven't. I know I left fish in the cooler one time and Darcy found it after fishing. And when we opened that up, that was the worst thing I had ever seen and smelled in my life. The Lord just said, out of our throats comes that. And it goes right to the lips and the mouth. All of it like a rotting corpse. And our tongues, we practice deceit. We are constantly tearing down everyone, aren't we? And all sorts of cursing and bitterness just comes out of there. And he moves to the last category. Feet. Actions. Thoughts, words, deeds. Our feet shed blood. We need proof of that? Destruction and misery are our ways. We've not known the ways of peace. Do we know peace? With the tongue and deeds and actions, we set the world on fire. Here's the grand summary. So, thesis, three categories. Summary. There is no fear of God in anyone's hearts, in anyone's lives, before our eyes. We live in total disregard of the Most High. We turn our faces from Him, totally disregarding Him. And here's God's indictment. That's what I see. Now, I may not like that, but that doesn't matter much, does it? God just said, That's my assessment. That's my verdict. Now, which view is Paul advancing tonight? Man's basically good. That's out. Man's halfway good. Or man's totally depraved. Could anyone hear that and say, I'm not that bad? The reason this is so important tonight is because it has everything to do with the consequences that follow. And your view affects what you understand you need. That's why we say boys and girls and to our young people, your view of sin is everything in this discussion. Let me put it this way. There was a hardware store in Linden and I would pass by it all the time. You know what that hardware store was called? The do-it-yourself sinner. The do-it-yourself sinner. Let's put these categories in that for a minute. If you're the first view and man is basically good, you have it right there. Do it yourself. What is Paul's argument in Romans 2 the whole time? Well, then you're on your own. You don't need the righteousness of God. You're on your own. But the least infraction, you're done. Least infraction. Christian can't hold that. Can't hold that and be a Christian. Okay? You say the second. Well, I'm just kind of derailed from being all that I could be. but in my life project, you know, I'm going to head over to the do-it-yourself center and I'm going to give it a shot. But I realize I need a little help from the do-it-yourself guys. I need some help from the employees on how to build. This was the Jews. You know, as long as your good works outweigh your bad works, the judgment will go okay for you. That was the Jewish view. And what do we say in that scenario? Well, then Jesus is half a Savior, isn't He? I reach up, God reaches down. Both doing our best. And that's why the Belgic warns about calling Jesus half a Savior. Believing that. Christianity becomes in this scenario, do it yourself with some aid, right? Jesus becomes a model to help you live better and it leaves us in the same scenario as the first scenario because Paul's going to say in Romans 11 it's either all of grace or all of works. There's no middle ground here. Then there's the last view. There's Pastor Gordon passing by the do-it-yourself center. I better stay away from that thing as far as I can. And trust me, I did. My wife will tell you I can't even screw in a light bulb without breaking it and jamming it in the socket. It's going to be really hard for someone who's good with their hands though, isn't it? And the point tonight is the Bible is telling us don't even look to the do-it-yourself center. Boys and girls, stay away from the do-it-yourself center because you don't have the ability to start the project. That's how bad it is. So here's my question tonight. If you can't change that and if I hate hearing that, Why is it so necessary for us to hear? Why do we have to preach that? It's not a flattering thing or an exciting thing to preach, but it's a necessary thing to preach. And why does it need to be felt? Why do we need to see it? Why do we need to say we believe it? Because the verdict's already been rendered. You don't have to wait until Judgment Day to know what God thinks. Romans 3 is the verdict. And He says it in verse 19. We know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law that every mouth might be stopped and that the whole world would become guilty before God. Therefore, here it is, by the deeds of the law, no flesh will be justified in His sight. For by the law is the knowledge of sin. Paul just said, what we should look at with Israel in this phenomenon of Israel and the nation of Israel is God handed them the law. And how did they do with the law? Badly. Badly. And that it should stop everyone. Stop up our mouths in trying to achieve our own righteousness because we can't do it. That's the message. That's the message. Hard to accept. Hard to accept. By the law, Paul says plainly here, comes the knowledge of what? Sin. And God did this with Israel, a particular people, a particular phenomenon in the history of the world to teach the world that no one is exempt and everyone is guilty before God because when we look at them, we see where unbelief lands you. Trying to do it yourself. And the conclusion is this. Your own moral good life, which there isn't, but we hold on to that. By all your efforts, by all your best efforts, by your best morality, by the best you try to do, you'll never make it before God. One day, we're going to stand there. And those books are going to be opened. And if we remain under the law, we've got a whole lot to answer for. Because in light of our problem, we can't achieve that righteousness. Now, I'm ready for what's to come. Aren't you? When I understand that, and I stop fighting about that, by the way. And I accept that and I say, my Lord, You've spoken. I believe it about myself. I see it. I'm ready now to hear how good He has been from His own resources to send His only begotten Son to this sin-cursed world. True God and true man who would propitiate the wrath of God in my place and in your place. And I'm ready to bow the knee and listen to this other righteousness, this different righteousness that He's about ready to tell me about in verse 21. But now a righteousness of God is revealed. It's not yours. It's somebody else's. I'm ready for that. I'm ready to accept that report. I'm ready to accept the fact all of us have turned aside, but the Lord did something. He laid on Him the iniquity of us all. How wonderful is the Lord tonight to do this? How wonderful has the Lord been to you tonight? You come here, you come to evening worship, and you sit here, and the Lord just spoke to you this way. For what end? That all of your faces would be turned to His salvation. That's the goal. That's how good He is. That we would with believing hearts realize we don't have to try to achieve this. You can put the Dukes down, if you will. Turn your faces to His Son. Look to the Son. And you will live in the kind of confident joy and peace that He's going to describe of the new life. Of a life no longer under the law, but under grace. Jesus is saying, you're going to know that truth. And that truth is going to set you free. Oh, what Christians that makes when they finally get that message. Amen. Oh Lord our God, we thank You that You care to do this tonight. Yes, it's hard to hear that our throats are open tombs. We confess our sins. We agree with everything that You've said. This is who we are by nature. This is what we deserve as Your wrath. And we turn tonight to the answer that You've provided. Thank You for sending Your Son. May our confidence, our faith, our joy, all of who we are cling to His person and work so that we might know what it is to live in this freedom and that our joy in this life would be complete. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.