Lesson 8b
Romans 3:9-18 · JD McCulley · May 13, 2018
Romans (2018-21), No. 17
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://www.hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/4926191063057

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

Alrighty, so we left off in lesson 8 on... let's see, I was trying to finish up question number 4. So that would have been... there is none who... oh, that's not a question, but we're going through verses 3, 10 through 18. We were looking at 10, so we said in verse 10, there is none righteous. In verse 11, there is none who understands. and then 11 goes on to say, there's none who seeks for God. And along those lines of thinking, I wanted to read you a portion from Newell's book, Romans, as we think about the idea that there's none who seeks for God. So, I thought this was interesting and insightful.

It says, Adam sinning turned his back and fled from a holy God. God had to take the place of the seeker. Adam, where art thou? So, it has ever been, no human being has ever sought the Holy God. Conscious of his creature weakness, and also of responsibility and guilt, and filled with terrors of conscience, or terrors of directly demon wrought, or perhaps under the delusion that some God, really demon, might grant him this or that favor, man has built his temples and conducts his worship. Banish from your mind the idea that any human being has ever had a holy thought or love for a holy God in his natural heart.

Grace, prevenient and efficacious, is the old phrase expressing the truth that God Himself takes the place of the seeker, convictor, persuader, giver, and final protector of all man's salvation. His sovereign grace goes ahead of and brings into being all human response to God. There's none who seeks, it's He who seeks you. A man in his natural state will never turn his eyes toward the Lord without the very grace of God through His Holy Spirit seeking him out.

His desire is to worship his own making. Remember we talked about chapter 1. They've traded the truth of God for a lie, and they no longer worship the Creator, but worship the creature. Right? So, man seeks a creation to worship every single time. I'm getting a little jittery. Just so you know. I feel like it's clearing up, but there's consequences with that. Let's look at number five here. All have turned aside. What do you think? Where's the psalm going with that? Well, it means that God's going this way and we're going that way, right? 100% of the time. Where do we see the first turning aside of history?

Adam. Before. Lucifer. Yeah. I mean, that's the picture. I think sometimes we, you know, we think of our turning aside as being less impactful as Satan being cast out of heaven in the presence of God, but no less impactful is man's turning aside from God than Satan's. It is equally the opposite direction. We talked about the word righteous a lot last week. This is the opposite of right. This is the turning against righteousness and choosing an enemy, choosing to be enemies.

It goes on and says, together they have become useless. I'll just put the word useless. I'm going to write all this. It's getting worse. I know. It does get worse before it gets better. So remember what we're doing. We're seeing... Paul has been accused of a number of things. Partiality or the fact that God can be glorified. That we should take joy in the fact that our sin brings glory from God. He corrects that.

And that was lesson 7. Lesson 8 and the rest of chapter 3 has to do with this is how God as judge sees man. So we have to understand the judgment of where man stands before we can understand the sacrifice by which he provides a way out. which is coming. But we have to understand the judgment first. It was for each of us important for us to understand that we stood in this category. Right? We had to understand that. We're guilty. That's where God goes through Paul in chapter 3 and takes us on that understanding.

So, useless thought. I think when you look just at those five things For a man to even acknowledge that that may be true is a very difficult task. Why? Because he views himself as better than this. Give me an example. I can worship God. I'm useful. I can make a decision. I can help the little old lady across the street. I can be useful. God will use me for something. I've got some understanding. I'm educated. I went to school. How can he say this about me? I'm intelligent. I don't commit any of the seven major crimes. I pay my taxes and that kind of stuff. So I'm doing okay. And yet here comes this indictment and I look at that.

Not only would I not arrive at this about myself on my own, but as the Spirit of God begins to convict me about this, it's a really tough pill to swallow. It's a little harsh, don't you think? God's kind of harsh. The problem is, it's true. I was just thinking of religion.

It bypasses this. provides a way. There's a few other things still left on this list, but I think you're exactly right. Man has done everything in his power to counterfeit these indictments in a way that circumvents the truth, right? I have to create a system by which I am righteous, I understand, I seek God, and that God is a different God than what you're speaking of, but I'm not turning aside, and I'm surely useless, I'm surely useful. I've done, I have deeds and they count. In my system they count. It goes on to say much more but man's attempt at writing this judgment is called religion. Right?

That's religion. And we think of, we constantly remind ourselves that we don't have a religion. It's not us trying to please God. It's God providing for us and us responding in thankfulness, right? It's a relationship. And, you know, we'll be spending the rest of our lives on this earth explaining that concept to people because religion is the answer to this indictment. Man's religion. It's interesting how this indictment goes to Cain. This was his attitude. This is the attitude of Lucifer when he looked at himself and said, you know, gee, God did a great job in creating me.

I think I got my own way to go here. I don't need him. And so, back in chapter one, when a foolish mind is darkened, it is darkened, I don't. You think you see, but you don't, because your frame of reference is just you. You know, the funny thing about that whole concept of, I've got my own way, I'm going to build my tower to the heavens, Tower of Babel type thing, is in our sin nature, we adapt that same concept.

I've got this God, I've got this on my own. I know you've been there, you've been providing for me, I've been resting. But this one, I got. Today I got it. You can take a break. You ever feel that way? You probably don't say that out loud to yourself, but that ends up being what we do. Basically say, I got this one. Just give me a chance. I can do it.

You know, I think one thing in this verse that we didn't put up there, and I think It's all have turned aside. Together they have become useless. So it's the summary of all that before is all of that. None righteous, not even one. None who understands. None who seeks for God. All have turned aside. down. It was from May 10th.

During the early carnal years, we were afraid to face up to the sinful nature within, not fully realizing that it was dealt with in condemnation to God's full satisfaction at Calvary. When we come to see all that the old nature was taken down into death of the cross, and in Christ Jesus we are completely clear of its penalty and power, then it is when we begin to welcome the work of the to be assured that God knows everything about us. He knows the very worst that can be discovered. He has searched out all that we are, and in spite of all that, and in spite of all, He has thoughts of blessings concerning us. There is therefore no fear of anything coming to light Yeah. But he knows, and the natural man hates that he knows this. Right. So does the spiritual man. Yeah. Yeah.

Well, the word useless, I thought about that a little bit, and I was like, that's a big deal. Useless. That means I have no purpose whatsoever. In the sense that I can't pursue anything, any one of my pursuits that I might commit myself to are completely vain. All of my pursuits, all of my efforts, all of my degrees, all of my awards, all of my victories, those are vain pursuits in the eyes of God. I also thought a little bit about it from the perspective of, how do we respond to uselessness?

If your truck breaks down, and is no longer useful, what do you say about your truck? You really want the words? Well, you kick the tire, and yeah. It's like a hammer to the hood. If it's useless, it's a piece of junk, right? You throw it out. And that's the way the world loves. It's like, I'll love you as long as you're useful. But once you're not useful to me, you're a gal.

But I think putting it in a different way, when you said the word useless, I think there is no value. No value. Zero value. Not useless. The concept behind it is rotten fruit. It's the stuff you throw out. And it's just to go to show that when we think about loving, something that's useless from a worldly perspective, we don't do that. Our love doesn't accommodate uselessness. It throws it out. That's why marriages end the way they do. You're no longer useful to me. You don't provide me the same things you used to. My needs have changed. And you move on. And I'm not trying to be harsh.

I'm explaining worldly love. What's interesting is what we're going to learn is that God loves the useless. And that's crazy. That's crazy kind of God love right there. That's different. A whole world of difference. You know, here we are useless. We're rotten fruit. We're to be thrown out. We've turned aside. We don't seek. We don't understand. And there's not a single bit of righteousness to be found in man. Yet he seeks us and gives us his righteousness so that he can love us.

It's just a... It's the kind of thing... I mean, this right here ultimately differentiates the scripture from any other religion. In every other religion, there's some amount of usefulness that you can provide to whoever it is that you're worshiping. You bring something to the table. God loves the folks that have nothing to bring to the table. Not a thing.

Again, it says in through that verse 12, There is none who does good, there is not even one. So the discussion becomes, what's good? And it really is a connecting verse. Verse 10. What does it say? There is none righteous, no not one. Right. As it is written. None righteous, none who do good. This, I got another color. These are the same, right? Now that's not going to work.

So doing good is defined by what? And what is righteousness? Whose is it? God's. It's God's. There's no other definition that we can come to for what is right other than God himself and his word. The Lord Jesus said there's nothing good about the Father. That's right. He's it. It's it. It's a person and that person has God breathed his truth into the word which is what Jesus is called in John chapter 1. But there's none who do good, there's none, not even one. Corruption rather than holiness, selfishness rather than goodness, cruelty rather than kindness. It's the opposite of righteous. That's where we are without Him.

And again, it goes back to this idea I think that Mike mentioned of, I'm not committing murder. So I'm not that cruel. I'm not I mean, I give my kids three meals a day. I'm not that selfish. You know what I mean? Yeah. But if you've ever hated someone, in God's sight, that's murder. Well, that's mean. I don't want to think of myself as being a murderer.

Yeah, there's no chance of a man agreeing to this. Save them the Holy Spirit's conviction. It's just not something I'll ever take time to ever admit. I mean, this doesn't make sense to me. I've got some good down there somewhere. Well, verse 13 says a little different, and now it moves a little deeper into the to this scenario. Their throat is an open grave. Danger. What does that mean? Full of corruption. Throat? My throat hurts. A little bit. Does that mean your throat hurts? Oh yeah, we can't talk about that yet. An open grave. What is an open grave? What a concept. An open grave. Can you imagine? I don't know. I'm not going to ask if anybody's been to an open grave.

But, I mean, yeah. Doctors, how do doctors assess health? Usually the first, what's one of the first things they do to make sure you're... Open up, say ah. I'll check and see if it's red back there. Your tonsils are swollen. What's going on in that throat? The idea is that it's a state of health. What's the state of health here?

Death. Decay. Moral stench. And worse, it's not hidden, it's not buried. It's open. So it's really like, I mean, it's exactly what it says. It's this emitting of a putrid heart. Everything that is sinful by their nature is being emitted out of their open throat. That was us! Right? I mean, that's where we were. Our throats were an open grave. I'm never admitting to that. No one would ever admit to this stuff. Again, to Mike's point, it's a... I don't know that there's any other indictment of man so horrific. I mean, we would never want to say this about ourselves.

Yeah, and as you mentioned Russ, verse 13 goes on to say, With their tongues they keep deceiving. The poison of asps is under their lips. Alright. So tongues deceiving. What does that mean? Keep deceiving. That's important. Why? Well, in the scripture, that's an imperfect tense, which means it's a habitual thing. By habit. Because of what they are, they habitually deceive. Deceive who? Deceive what? Everything. Themselves, others. They attempt to deceive God. I mean, that's what Adam did, right? No, I don't know what you're talking about. I don't know.

Oh, well, then, sure, okay, I, but she, and the serpent, so I'm the victim. And oh by the way, you gave me the girl. Yeah, it was your fault. You gave me the girl, this serpent can't... I mean, not me, you. Right? It's the playing game. And it's the victim's mentality. And that's what man will do. Constantly, habitually deceiving themselves, deceiving others, and attempting to deceive God. The idea that I can hide from God. That's where man is. I mean, he knows he's hiding. Chapter 1 of Romans tells us that.

This poison of asps. I'll read you this. The venom of asps is under their lips. This is interesting to me. The fangs of a deadly serpent lie, ordinarily folded back in its upper jaw, but when it throws up its head to strike, those hollow fangs drop down, and when the serpent bites the fangs press a sack of deadly poison hidden under its lips, at the root, thus injecting the venom into the wound.

You and I were born with moral poisoned sacks like this. And how people do claim the right to strike others with their venom words, to use their snake fangs. That's good. I never thought about it that way. But yeah, the poison of asps is under their lips, just like the fangs underneath the asp. How quick we are to use our snake fangs.

There's something that comes out from man's heart, passing from the throat first, where there is the utter corruption of death, an open sepulcher, revolting to the eyes of the living, then the tongue, contaminated, because the tool of deceit and the lips, which might have hindered both the throat and tongue, only increase the scourge of evil. adding to it the venomous poison of asps.

Little wonder, then, that the mouth is full of cursing and bitterness." Which is the next part. Here then it is that which comes out of the mouth from the heart that is first condemned. So we have verse 14. "...whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness." What is the first thing they curse?

What do you think? God. I mean, in a natural state, you tell me this about myself, curse that God. This is too much. He can't be the God that I see. I see a God of love. You see people deceiving themselves in that way? will love, in what way? He's useful to you. Because you can only love that which is useful. I think, coming out of the idea that the venom of ash is under their lips, you have the result of that, this cursing, a mouth full of cursing and bitterness.

It's ever ready. That bitterness is ready to go. It's right there. It's a loaded gun. You cross me just ever so much. You're going to get cursed. I'll throw bitterness between our relationship from here on out. Don't you ever. Don't do it. You know what I mean? That's how we walk around as an unbeliever. It's like, I dare you to get on my bad side. You know? You guys feel that way sometimes too? In your sin nature, does the idea of cursing and bitterness cross your heart?

It can. It sure can. I think it's important too to recognize that what all this has to do with is the source where it comes from. And because a non-believer, this is the only source he has, than a non-believer. It's the same source. And so we try to put holy water sometimes on our sin nature, but this is it. This is a description of it. And believers, because the source is the same, believers are capable and obviously if you walk in the flesh this is the result. I don't accurately describe my sin nature to myself sometimes as the scripture does.

It's like, yeah, it's that stubborn old fella. And I kind of, well, we all do. We entertain that guy. But this is what he is. This is his ways. This is how God views that. We have the benefit of not being seen by our judge in this way. We should still condemn what it is in the same way that God does and see it in such a way that God does. I think part of the argument that Paul is presenting when he gets to the co-crucifixion of the believer If, as you're educated about what your old man, your sin nature is really like, then you realize that, well, again God has done the right thing.

He can't fix this. It's not fixable because there's just too many elements to it. So in essence what he has to do is replace it. That's the only thing that you can do with this. Put it to death. Verse 15, their feet are swift to shed blood. And what Newell says, for further details check your daily paper. For further details check your daily paper. You just, I dare you to cross me. I'll kill you. I'm not just going to curse you and have an attitude of bitterness towards you. I will take your life. I'll shed your blood. Because you deserve it. Because it's your fault. And you're in my way. Whatever the case. You're useless.

I don't know. Or it's just entertaining. I mean, like again, it's the reasons behind the things that are happening in our daily papers, psychology can never understand, because they refuse to recognize man for who they really are. Psychology, I think, is a study of the sin nature. It is. And try breaking that down. Try fixing that guy. I mean, how do you reverse this? With psychology.

Because you hear all the time that mankind is basically good. Oh yeah. That's what's put out there for us. Yeah, I quoted a country singer that has got a new song last week, but he says, I believe most people are good and most mothers qualify for sainthood. Yeah. Sorry. Oh, that's cruel on Mother's Day. Right? Tough on Mother's Day?

You don't qualify for sainthood, I'm sorry. Only by trusting in what the Lord has done do you get to wear that term saint. It's one set apart, right? And my mom does qualify for sainthood, though. I'm sure you do, too. You realize when I do the announcements now, Happy Mother's Day, that's going to be really hard to do. You're not saints. All of these people are not. All these girls. Oh yeah, all of you are. But try telling that to an unbelieving mom. Moms can be great, right? But if this is where they're at, then it's our job to love them in the same way that God loves them, right?

And again, without the Holy Spirit convicting them of their guilt before God in relationship to sin, the sin, then, you know, yeah. Do you think that the Spirit of God would do an exhaustive conviction of a non-believer through all of this process before he saves them or is it... No. I don't think so. So the awareness of this comes after you're saved? Most of it can. I do think that there is a recognition of sin.

So whether it comes through the distinct aspects of that sin nature, I don't think I understood that, you know, that my throat was an open grave before I became a believer. I learned that after the fact. But what I did know is that I had a sin problem, and that it stood in contradiction to who God was, and it prevented me from having a relationship with Him. I was separated because of my sin. And I later came to understand that I was useless. And man, you know, this became a spiritual growth thing about the sin nature, right? No, it's just to sit here and tell me what the unbelieving world is like. It tells me what that little guy that's a deposed monarch, right? No longer has control over me.

And I call him little guy because it sounds better. He's the little guy. With the big, big man syndrome, right? Yeah. And he pops up, and a lot of power. If you give it to him, otherwise he's just a little guy. You know, I was having trouble with swift to shed blood. Yeah. When I was in the army, I was in Germany, and I was walking through this deep snow over to a big truck, and I had a pipe wrench in my hand. And this guy, one of my friends, threw a snowball at me right in the face. And he was running away. And the big tool left my hand. The guy disappears behind the truck. And I'm thinking, man.

So destruction and misery are in their paths. It's a good thing he wasn't in your path. Those who so loudly proclaim that the human race is improving, progressing, They're blind, deceived, blind to history, blind to present day facts, blind to the rising tide of human violence. Same as in days of Noah. Full of violence.

In the path of peace they have not known. And that's the saddest part, right? At the end of the day. In the path of peace they have not known. What would it be like for us to not have peace? What's the opposite of peace? Fear. Okay, that's coming. Verse 18.

It's a terrible thing God here reveals that not one of the human race knows or is by nature pursuing the path of peace. Peace is always a direct revelation from God. You can't get it any other way. God has to seek you and reveal what is true about you as a believer for you to ever have peace. Yeah. Could you say unrest? Unrest. Yeah. We often times say that God's word when believed provides what? Rest for your soul. Rest for your soul. Resting. There is no rest for an unbeliever. And there's no rest for a believer who is operating by the flesh.

I'm guilty of that. I know that. I don't have rest when I do this. What is it that I have as a believer when I'm not resting? Frustration. I frustrate the opportunity I have to allow Christ to do the living through me. I frustrate those processes. And I know I'm not being who I was designed to be. It's a miserable state. It's a miserable place to be.

Because the Holy Spirit is convincing you, I think all the time, of your state. And we attempt to do the same thing as we did when we were unbelievers, is suppress that truth and unrighteousness. We're like, I'm just not ready yet. Let me walk with this guy for a little longer, I'm not done. And then I'll get it all figured out. And that's where maturity comes into place, right? That's where our walk with the Lord, as we find that peace and that rest, walking with Him and trusting Him, that grows. And that desire for that relationship, that intimacy, grows.

Because it's a family thing, right? And your heart hurts when you're offending the Father, by way of not having fellowship with him, right? Not from a sin perspective, but from an offense perspective. It's a familiar, a familial thing. A father-son thing.

Verse 18 says, there is no fear of God before their eyes. Why would you fear God? Why do we fear God? If they don't, and the sin nature does not, how do we fear God? And what is that all about? Doesn't that sound like not a cool God? The kind of God you've got to fear? You're supposed to fear your God? Well, that's really weird. Yeah, oh yeah, he's the one in the Old Testament that did all da-da-da-da-da-da.

Right? What does it mean to fear God from a believer's perspective? Reverence. Reverence? Okay, that's a good word. And why would you revere? Is that right? Why would you revere the God of the Bible? Because of His holiness. That's right. That's the exact word that I think is... the idea of majesty comes in as well. Lord. That word Lord with a big L. Right? To fear God consists in having such a due sense of the majesty and holiness and justice and goodness of God. as shall make us thoroughly fearful to offend him."

Now, we know that God is also loving, so He balances His holiness, His righteousness, His justice with His love and His grace. He's not one without the other. He is both equally at the same time. But that should never keep us from having a reverence or fear of God in such a way that we not forget that he sums this all up in the judgment, right? There's judgment with this, but there's also a way to escape. Again, justice and love.

You are enjoying the path of love because you accepted the free gift. Those who don't have that substitution in their place will have without fearing God, because there's no fear, they don't have any reverence for Him, because they don't seek Him, and they don't understand Him. And so they don't fear Him. They have, in essence, taken the role of God by judging themselves as being pretty good.

Or, if I'm going to the The Mormon church, I did my two years of eldership and I walked the streets and I've got a free pass now from here on out. I don't know how that works to be honest. All I know is they don't walk the streets for nothing. You know what I mean? There's no redeeming features here.

All sin is the result of a negative attitude toward God. And this is what produces that. All sin. And the only thing that we can do with this guy is to see him dead. This is true for the unbeliever. In a different way, but very similar, it's true for the believer. That sin nature needs to be recognized, reckoned as dead and alive to Christ. I need to reckon myself dead.

This isn't dead. It's separated from me in the sense that... But it's not dead. It's alive and well. Well, it is separated from its power, but it's not separated from the body yet. That's what we call it. We recognize it as the flesh, right? So we will be ultimately separated. We are spiritually separated from this. But we have the choice to join ourselves back to its obedience.

Yeah, I think it's a misunderstanding to think that, well, the sin nature died because it doesn't. I died to it. If you were to hear me saying dead and think of it as like annihilation, then right. But dead in the sense of it is dead in terms of separation to a degree. You're talking about from my perspective? Well, from my perspective as believers.

I'm just saying that if we were to say, this was annihilated, then we'd be the one nature, right? And then we'd have a problem with that. Because then we would say we really don't sin anymore. And then we'd have a problem with scripture. And we could be friends with, what's that guy's name? One nature Bob guy? There's some guy named Bob that started that. All right. Is that fair?

Yeah, it's fair because Romans 8.3 says that it's been condemned. Well, condemnation doesn't mean that the sentence has been carried out yet. It has from my position. I'm separated from it. I'm dead to it. But if I don't want to abide in my position, then this is who I am. This is what I manifest. Because it's still smoking around inside of me.

Actually, just jogging my thoughts here, you know, none who understand that peace that they have not known. The verse came up in Philippians 4-7, and the peace of God would surpass all understanding, all comprehension. They don't know that, but as believers it surpasses anything Do only conservatives understand this and liberals don't?

Are we talking politically? Here's my point. Everybody in the world, I don't care what they say they are, this is where they come from. This is the world we live in and no political theory is going to change this one inch. This is who everybody is. You know, dealing with lots of legal and contracts. Look, that's why I like this section.

There is no there is no loophole in this. No. If you look, none, none, none at all. There is not somebody who can say point to something and say, I'm not part of this. I was going to say what you were talking about, conservatives and conservatives during the presidential thing.

Every one of these things. I mean, this is who they all are. Well, my screen was smoking. I'm going to be going. How angry is it for all these people on both sides? I mean, the one great advantage of Christian has is he knows who he's dealing with. Oh, yeah. Yeah. That was fun.

Father we're just so incredibly thankful for your love for us that you seek us out and you provided a way that we might have a relationship with you and that that relationship would be intimate and very real and That we are not responsible for producing for you that rather we are We have the opportunity to rest and trust you to do the living through us and so we just pray that each of us would Even as we look to the Lord's table later today, just to examine our own selves and just consider the opportunities that we have to trust and rest in you. And thank you that you always, always provide for us. It's in your name we pray. Amen.