All Are Under Sin and Accountable

Transcript

GR 2212
06/30/2019
All Are Under Sin and Accountable
Romans 3:9-20
Gil Rugh

We’re in the Book of Romans together and chapter 3. Remember Paul is unfolding in the Book of Romans a very clear and orderly presentation of the gospel. It’s the good news of salvation provided by God in the person of Jesus Christ. It’s the gospel that he said in chapter 1 verse 16 that is “the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes.” It takes God’s power to bring about salvation to an individual life and the reason for that is the foundation of the gospel, we are sinners. The “wages of sin is death” all the way back to the garden of Eden in the opening chapters of Genesis and the rebellion of Adam and Eve brought about the consequences of that rebellion which was death for all descendants, so he’s starting out with the issue of sin. Sin, the danger is, we have people who think they’ve been saved, but have never really understood the issue of their sin and guilt before God.

Now I realize we grow in our understanding in every area of our salvation, but I don’t think true salvation can occur if there’s no sense and awareness of our sin. Some people go through some kind of emotional experience, religious experience of some kind, or some kind of activity in a religious context and come out of that thinking, “well I’m saved, I trusted Christ. I went forward and prayed” or you know something like that. Some of those people, if they’ve not truly understood their own sin and guilt as they progress along, they grow up in the church. They have a testimony of sorts, but they are oblivious to the reality of their own sin, and are the kind of people that find it easy to become experts in other people’s sin, because they have not really come to grasp the seriousness of their own situation.

There is a reason God directs Paul to spend from Romans chapter 1 verse 18 through chapter 3 verse 20 explaining and making clear our sinful condition. We have come through down into chapter 3, we’re ready for the last part of the chapter, the concluding section. Remember what he did in chapter 1 verse 18 to the end of the chapter, he showed that all Gentiles, anywhere in the world, were sinners, guilty before God. When he comes into chapter 2, he zeroes in on a special group of people, the Jews, because they were special. God had chosen the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob to be His own special people. He had provided salvation for them. He had given them blessings and benefits. He had appointed a sacrificial system for them and a priestly system and so on. The problem was, these people began to depend not upon God and His provision for them but upon their own spiritual activity.

I was reading some of the emails of those who were out doing personal evangelism door to door. I hope you get a chance to read that and it’ll encourage you to pray for those who are out, but how many people they have their religion, they have their church, they’re fine. What a sad condition to be in, to understand your personal sin and guilt and what that means. The only power that can cleanse you is not the power of the church. It’s not the power of your baptism or your communion or these kinds of things. The hardest thing for salvation, I believe, is the pride of the individual and the unwillingness to humble themselves before God and acknowledge their unworthiness.

Some of you are familiar with Donald Grey Barnhouse. He’s written a multi-volume commentary on Romans. He was pastor of Tenth Presbyterian Church for a number of years in Philadelphia and he said this. “The last vestige of his self-respect” . . . referring to man “The last vestige of his self-respect must be destroyed, and it is destroyed in order that he might stand as naked and shameless, bankrupt before God.” “I have no place else to go. Lord, I am hopeless, I am helpless, I come to You. Be merciful to me, the hell deserving sinner that I am.” That’s what Paul has demonstrated. He’s demonstrated that the Jews are in no better condition spiritually than the Gentiles and, if anything, they are in worse condition, and chapter 3 opened up asking, “what advantage has the Jew and the Jews as a nation?” Now what’s the benefit? The number one thing is, they were “entrusted with the word of God,” verse 2. The problem was, as we have seen on a number of occasions, they just lost interest and their attention was carried away from what God said, and the relationship with Him to just the religious activity, and they became proud and arrogant, and self-righteous in their unique position as Jews.

Paul has demonstrated in chapter 2, down through the first eight verses of chapter 3, the benefits that the Jews have, provided an opportunity for salvation but that doesn’t save them. They have the word of God that testified to the righteousness of God and the provision He made and would give to those who had faith in Him. The father of the Jewish nation is the great example and we’ll get to that when we get into chapter 4. Abraham “believed God and God credited it to him as righteousness.” “The gospel is the power of God for salvation to everyone who, believes.” So the Jews, they have bailed. They crucified their Messiah because they had their system. “Don’t disrupt my system. I don’t want to hear it.”

We come to verse nine. “What then? Are we better than they?” and I take it when Paul talks about “we” he is talking about himself as a Jew? “Are we Jews better than those Gentiles? Not at all,” why? “we have already charged that both Jews and Greeks are all under sin.” You ought to have that marked, highlighted, or underlined in your bible. “We have already charged both Jews and Greeks” that includes everybody, all Jews and all non-Jews are all, that word “all.” The inclusiveness of “all” and “none,” “all” and “none” that we’ll see, “are under sin.” That’s Paul statement, all, no exceptions. We’ll see the words “none” and “all” repeated down through the closing verses of this section. This is inclusive, there are no exceptions. One of the disasters that happens with our change in thinking. It’s hard even to talk to people about sin because they don’t think they are sinners. “I may not be a perfect person, but I certainly don’t deserve punishment from God.”

All are under sin. “Under sin,” that word there, it’s crucial. It means to be under the authority, under the control. It can be used in different contexts, a military context, a home context where children are under the authority of the father, under power and control of someone else. All are under sin, so it gives you a perspective on it. Not just all have sinned, that says it in a different way, but all are under sin. One commentator noted several things said about sin in the book of Romans.

1. Sin is said to reign over sinners, sin reigns. Come over to chapter 5 verse 21 – it talks about “sin reigned in death.” It reigns as a king; it is sovereign over sinners.
2. Secondly, sin is said to be a master, a lord. It moved from a word related to being a king to being a lord, to being a master, the picture there. You come to chapter 6 verse 14 “sin shall not be master over you.”

We’ll talk about the context of that when we come and talk about law and grace in this context, but that’s what sin is, not only a king, it’s a master, it’s a lord, it makes us a prisoner. Come to, chapter 7 verse 23, “I see a different law in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind making me a prisoner of the law of sin.” “A prisoner,” you know people think they’re free. When they do what they want, I’m free. They’re prisoners. This is just one passage we’re looking at, what is said in Romans primarily.

Sin is not an external problem it’s an internal problem. Chapter 7 verse 17, “so I no longer am I the one doing it, but sin, which dwells in me.” He’ll say that and repeat that at the end verse 20 of chapter 7, “but sin which dwells in me,” so we’re not battling an external foe primarily, we’re battling an internal sin which dwells within a person. And then, if you back up to chapter 6 again, it would fit. Sin is said to be a master. We noted that in verse 14, sin enslaves us, it makes us slaves. In chapter 6 of Romans, verse 6, “know that our old man was crucified with Him, in order that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin.” Verse 17, “but thanks be to God that though you were slaves of sin.” Verse 20, “when you were slaves of sin,” and this relates to what Jesus said in John 8 talking to the religious Jews, leaders of His day. They didn’t think they were sinners, not that kind of sinner, not Gentile kind of sinners, not sinners that were really lost. He said it simply, “the one who sins is the slave of sin,” so something of the serious condition. Come back to Romans chapter 3, this is what it means to be under sin and any way you want to look at it, it rules over us. It’s our master, we are its slaves.

We are held as prisoners. That’s why the church does not want to get involved in reform movements. They are nothing. The problem is far too serious. It can’t be fixed. It can’t be corrected. It took the intervention of God. How we help is, we bring the message which is God’s power for salvation to set men free and so on. But there is no other solution and when people don’t want to hear the message of God’s salvation, we can’t do anything to help them. There is a cure. There is a remedy, but Jesus said, “If you do not believe that I am He, you will die in your sin.” Period. “I am the way, the truth and the life; no one comes to the Father but by Me.” There is just no other way. We are just as narrow as people think we are, and it’s not that we think we’re right and everybody else is wrong. God is right and everybody else is wrong, and we want to bring our thinking in line with what God says.

That’s what he’s doing in Romans, so verse 9 of Romans 3. “Jews are not better than Gentiles. Not at all for we have already charged that both Jews and non-Jews, Greeks, are all under sin.” Now what he’s going to do is support that with a series of quotes. This is more extensive than Paul does anywhere else in his writings. He strings together, some refer to it as a string of pearls, a series of quotes from the Old Testament and there is a certain grouping here. Verses 10 to 12 will deal with the general condition and character of all men, then in verses 13 and 14, he’ll deal with the revelation of sin in our speech, showing that our speech reveals that we are sinners. Then in the closing verses, 15 to 18, he’ll talk about other deeds we do that reveal the sinful condition. So what he’s doing is going to support from the Old Testament Scriptures what he has just proved in what he said in chapter 2, and the first part of chapter 3.

Remember the great benefit the Jews had, and there are a number of benefits. We talked about that. When we get to chapter 9, we’ll see some of the benefits beyond just the word of God that the Jews had, but here they are entrusted with the oracles of God, God’s very word. Now he has showed and charged them that word in verse 9, like a judicial charging, the courtroom charge here that all are under sin, that includes the Jews, and if the Jews say they don’t believe it, “I’ll show you. Here’s what your own Scriptures say, so what I have demonstrated to be true, what I have charged you with, Jew and non-Jew alike” and it’s the Jews who have the problem because they think, “well we have the Scriptures. We’re entrusted with the oracles of God.” “Yes, you are. The problem is, you don’t listen,” so now he’s going to, in verses 10 to 12 talk about the general character and condition of all men as it is written, and we’re not going to go back to all these passages. You’ll have a number of them in the margin of your bible and you can go back and read them.

They’re quoted usually from the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Old Testament. There may be some wording you’ll note a little different, but basically the Spirit of God directing Paul here, quoting from their Scriptures, “as it is written, “THERE IS NONE RIGHTEOUS, NOT EVEN ONE.” Now we just read that in Ecclesiastes chapter 7 verse 20 in our study earlier today, “there’s not a righteous man on the earth who always does good and never sins.” You Jews who think you’re not included in the charge brought against you that you’re a sinner, “there’s none righteous, not even one” and these opening, we could connect back to some of the Psalms like Psalm 14 and so on as you see in the margin of your bible. “There’s none righteous,” and righteousness is the key theme of the epistle. We’ll pick that up when we start chapter 3 verse 21, the second division and the righteousness of God. Remember, “the gospel is the power of God for salvation for in it the righteousness of God is revealed.” That’s what we need. We don’t need your righteousness, my righteousness, because that won’t do it.

“All our righteousness’s” as Isaiah said, “are like polluted filthy rags.” They’re of no value. Why? “There’s none righteous not even one?” We’re not talking about “clean up your life,” and this is where we don’t want to get too caught up in what’s going on in the world around us. It doesn’t mean we can’t you know we can be good citizens, vote but be careful. The solution is not in a political realm, it’s not in a social realm, it is in the gospel. If men and women reject the gospel, we cannot help them. There is no help from God for them when they reject the help He has offered. That’s the condemnation given to Israel. They didn’t want God’s help. “There is none righteous, not even one.” You see how firm he said at the end of verse 9, “all are under sin.” You know where that takes, let’s take it from the other side, all are under sin, none righteous. If you don’t understand what he means by none righteous that means not even one, so that pretty well covers every single individual.

You see what he has done. He’s calling the Scriptures, the Jewish Scriptures as support for what he has done. All these things in capital letters as you are aware, familiar with your bibles, that’s the way they use quotes. They put them in these capital letters to set them off. There’s not even one. Verse 11, “THERE IS NONE WHO UNDERSTANDS, THERE IS NONE WHO SEEKS FOR GOD.” That is the condition, fallen man is without understanding. That’s why we come and present the gospel and it will take the work of the Spirit of God to take that gospel and bring conviction to that heart. This is not a matter of being smarter than the people we’re dealing with. You don’t have to be smart, super intelligent, but you have to be clear with the gospel. It doesn’t mean there aren’t times when we sit and have an occasion and we discuss certain matters with the unbeliever, but our goal is always to have to direct this to the gospel. That’s where we’re going. If we don’t get to the gospel, we haven’t done anything. We’ve just exchanged ideas. “There is none who understands.”

You want to just slip over to First Corinthians. Come to chapter 2, another way of saying this. In First Corinthians, chapter 2 verse 14, “the natural man” this is the soulish man, he’s the man without the Spirit of God, “does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, they are foolishness to him.” Note this, “he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned,” so in a way we’re talking to deaf people who cannot hear what we’re saying. They can’t understand it. It’s like somebody giving me a scientific explanation and I have no idea what they’re talking about. That’s where the unbeliever is. It doesn’t matter how intelligent he is. This is going right by him but I want to explain it as clearly as I can but you understand in Paul’s ministry he stirred up as much trouble as he did, bringing about what we would call “positive results” of seeing people saved. I mean he created riots.

“There is none who understands, there is none who seeks for God.” Man is on his own course. He’s got his own solutions, his own ideas, and he doesn’t want you intruding, unsettling his world, but that’s what God has sent us here to do. Somebody did it for you, somebody did it for me. We’ll get to this in chapter 10 of Romans. “How can they believe in someone they have not heard about?” They can’t believe a message they haven’t heard, and there must be those sent to bring the message. There’s none who seeks for God they’re on their own road. What are you coming in unsettling my life for? Because I have something from God to tell you. That’s where we are, but we as Christians, as bible believers, have to understand the condition, sort of like Ecclesiastes talks about, certain things happen around us in our country, in our world, in our personal lives, and somehow we leave God’s wisdom and we’re out here.

“There’s none who understands, none who seeks for God.” So much for seeker services. We want to create services, so people are seeking for God. Now we can do things that are particularly directed toward the unbeliever so they can hear the gospel, but it’s not like there are people out there—if they just had occasion. No, but there are people out there, you know what Paul said, “I endure all things for the sake of the elect that they might come to the salvation, which is in Christ.” Now that’s worth giving your life for, there are people out there that God in His grace in eternity past has chosen, what a privilege if is He uses me to bring the gospel them.

“None,” verse 12 let’s change that inclusive language a little bit; let’s go back to “all,” the other side. “ALL HAVE TURNED ASIDE TOGETHER THEY HAVE BECOME USELESS.” “All have turned aside; all of us like sheep have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way, and the Lord has caused the iniquity of us all to fall on Him,” Isaiah wrote. “All have turned aside,” lump them all together, they are useless to God. Worthless, an analogy was used of rotten fruit. It’s worthless for the purpose it came into existence for, it’s of no value. Sometimes people have tried to present the gospel, you know you are so valuable Christ died for you. Well I don’t know; you have your bible. All have turned aside together that means all of them are included here together they have become useless. God didn’t send Christ to die for me because I was a treasure that He needed. What value do I have apart from His salvation? I was good for hell. Weren’t we created in the image of God? Yes, and it was shattered. The angels were created good as well. Perfect from the day they were created until iniquity was found in them. God made all things good we saw at the end of Ecclesiastes 7 and man has turned aside to his own devices. I don’t think God has anything in this that He is gaining.

You know that’s the humbling thing. “Are you telling me I am apart from the salvation of Christ, a worthless sinner? You mean I come to God that humbled, that I am unworthy.” “Lord I have nothing of value to bring to you. I am a hell-deserving sinner.” All together they have become useless in that sense of value. I understand we’re created in the image of God, but you know what those apart from Christ are destined to, eternal hell. Being the image of God doesn’t mean, “well I know he’ll account for something.” We are useless. He piles these terms up and you’ll note He’s quoting these from the Old Testament passages. I’m not going back because we have it here instead of taking the time. “THERE IS NONE WHO DOES GOOD, NOT EVEN ONE” and he bring this up because the Jews had the problem. “We understand the world is lost, the multitude of Gentiles are lost, wherever they are whatever they do, but we Jews.…” No, not even one.

Then he’s going to quote from their Scriptures to show their language, their speech, the way they talk. This is a revelation of their sinfulness. Their Old Testament Scriptures say it. Verse 13, “THEIR THROAT IS AN OPEN GRAVE,” and he’s going to move through here. He’s going to talk about the throat, tongues, lips, mouth, all those parts of our body used for speaking. The throat, the tongue, the lips, the mouth, our speech. So, he says in verse 13, “their throat is an open grave, with their tongues they keep deceiving,” and that’s from Psalms as you have in your margin, chapter 5 verse 9, “an open grave.” What comes out of an open grave? Stench. Jesus used it to picture corruption, full of dead men’s bones, those graves. They might be white washed on the outside, but inside is dead men’s bones.

“Their throat is an open grave, with their tongues they keep deceiving,” that’s what they do. They’re good at it, but what they’re doing is deceiving, corrupting. Psalm 5 verse 9, which were not going back to, where this is quoted from. David begins this verse by saying there is nothing reliable or true in what they say. That’s what the world is it’s a world of lies and sometimes you watch the news and what’s going on and even in so much of the political realm there. The world is full of lies everybody’s telling lies and how do you sort out who’s telling the truth. It’s nothing and you think “these are so blatant,” but that’s characteristic of unbelievers. Lies shouldn’t be part of believers. Remember the tongue is a world of inequity. Believers have to be careful we light matches with our tongues and do great damage.

“THE POISON OF ASPS IS UNDER THEIR LIPS” that’s quoted from Psalms 140 and David here is appealing to God for help. His enemies are so cruel their slander is doing such damage. People claim to be believers and they will promote such slanderous lies. It reveals the character, “the poison of asps is under their lips,” that’s what’s coming out like a poisonous snake. There’s a deception going on and all but all that comes out is poison. It’s destructive, it destroys. Verse 14 “WHOSE MOUTH IS FULL OF CURSING AND BITTERNESS,” bitterness, lies, slander. Some of these things we say, “well that’s not the same as certain other kinds of sins.” That is a revelation of character. Come back to Matthew chapter 12, so we see Christ addressing this in another context during His earthly ministry. Verse 34, this is the context a tree is known by its fruit. Verse 34 of Matthew 12, “You brood of vipers,” so you see the same kind of thing drawn from the Old Testament, the poison of asps, that poisonous snake. “You brood of vipers, how can you, being evil, speak what is good? For the mouth speaks out of that which fills the heart.”

That’s why we will be judged by our words. Down in verse 37, “By your words you will be justified, by your words you will be condemned,” because your words reveal what’s in your heart, coming out of a heart that is deceitful and desperately wicked. How do you put a lid on the lies and slanderous things that are said? You confront people about it. It doesn’t do any good. You could spend your life chasing those things down, but it ought not to go on among God’s people. It was going on in the church at Corinth, Paul had to warn the Galatians. Be careful when you’re biting and devouring you don’t tear one another apart, and then pretty soon you don’t know who the believers are and the unbelievers are, because somehow the believers have gotten caught up and they’re acting like the unbelievers, sort of like we saw in Ecclesiastes chapter 7. The wise get lured away because of the circumstances now they’re in, they get caught up in it, now you have people profess to be believers, and their poison is coming out of their mouth. Be careful, maybe we’re just getting a revelation of who the believers are. Only God knows the heart. They have a good testimony, but they have terrible lives.

Come back to Romans chapter 3. We want to be careful because this is where Israel, the people that had God’s word, the people that claimed to belong to God, as a nation they were claimed by God and yet He said those individuals in that nation were not His. They were a stench in His nostrils, a serious thing. We want to be careful. Where along the way did Israel get so far off? Look at the church. Where do the churches go over time? Look at major denominations where they’ve gone. We were Methodists and I’m not attacking one in particular but that’s what my family background was. We had to leave the word of God was no longer there. My parents sat, and I sat in the living room with them, and they told the pastor they had to leave. He said I understand I really believe in Jesus Christ, and there is no truth in the Methodist church anymore, but I’m too old to leave because my retirement is here. That’s a sad statement but that was his explanation. They drift. Where along the line did they leave? You can read Martin Luther’s writings. You can read John Wesley’s writings and you find truth. What happens? Well that won’t happen to us, that won’t happen to us individual churches, so note, note what he’s saying here. They have established the fact of sin and we want to be careful if these things characterize us. We have to examine where we are.

You pick up with verse 15 other kind of things, “THEIR FEET ARE SWIFT TO SHED BLOOD, DESTRUCTION AND MISERY ARE IN THEIR PATHS, THE PATH OF PEACE THEY HAVE NOT KNOWN.” This is what sinful people do, this is what the Old Testament told the Jews, those entrusted with the oracles of God, verse 2. “I have just,” Paul could say, “shared with you what those oracles that you’re proud to have in your possession say. They were like many people today who have bibles, family bibles and they set them out, and they may have multiple bibles. They just don’t read them, listen, and submit to its truth. It does no good. What do you do with an old bible? You want to revere it you don’t want to put it in the garbage as though having something—it’s some kind of supernatural aura around it.

This is where the Jews came to, they still were proud that they had the word of God, but here’s what it says. It ends with verse 18, “THERE IS NO FEAR OF GOD BEFORE THEIR EYES.” This is the tragedy. We’re talking about the fear of God in the Book of Ecclesiastes. You know what this was Israel’s condition. Somewhere along the line that reverence that respect that fear of disobedience, of disobeying God, of incurring His wrath went out the window. God would say to them “You have become weary of Me. You consider Me tiresome,” and these claim to be God’s people. How do you get from here to there? Paul has to quote to the Jews their own Scripture that they no longer were listening to, so he has established the point, there is no fear of God before their eyes. “The truth that you claim makes you special reveals your condition and you reject it, so you reject the word that you have.”

He goes on to say in verse 19 as he summarizes and pulls this section together. “Now we know that whatever the Law says, it speaks to those under the Law.” He’s just quoted all these verses from the Old Testament. The Law is sometimes used for the first five books, the books of Moses as we refer to them, the Law because the Law of God, the covenant of Moses, the Mosaic Law was given there, but it is sometimes used to refer to the whole Old Testament. We’ve taken time on other occasions and other settings, but we won’t take the time now to look where the Law is used to refer to the Old Testament Scriptures. We’ll find Paul saying, “And the Law says” and he’ll quote a passage of the Law, but it might be from one of the prophets, because that was the first five books and it can be a reference used more broadly. So when he says “whatever the Law says, it speaks to those who are under the Law,” those who have the oracles of God, verse 2, and those who have the Law as he talked about in chapter 2, the Mosaic Law with its commandments. It all goes together there is a consistency in what the Old Testament says, so those under the Law are addressed by the Law, so were not just quoting this.

“You think you’re an exception because you have the Law, God’s word, and you don’t obey it. It says it to you when it says there is none righteous, not even one, that’s your Scriptures. Do you think they are not binding on you? You were entrusted with the oracles of God. Here’s what they say.” What is the purpose? “so that every mouth,” you see again, no exceptions, “every mouth may be closed all the world may become accountable to God.” What he’s doing here, you say “well the Gentiles didn’t have the oracles of God,” no, but they were shown to be sinners, they had revelation in the creation, chapter 1 demonstrated that. The real point to drive home here is to show the Jews, because Paul being a Jew, and he could get universal agreement on the condition of the Gentiles, like religious people today they get proud of their particular position.

We don’t want to get there as Christians, just because you attend Indian Hills Community Church doesn’t mean that saves you. It’s those who have placed their faith in Christ who are saved. So every mouth is closed because we’ve demonstrated in chapter 1 all the Greeks are sinners, and we’ve dealt with those who thought they were an exception and they are in one sense because they were the only nation, from among all the nations that God chose for Himself, and we’ve demonstrated that every single one of them were sinners. Christ said what? “I didn’t come into the world to call the righteous but sinners to repentance,” that’s what He’s addressing, self-righteous people put themselves beyond reach. “I come to deal with those who recognize their sin and guilt.” So all the world is now accountable to God. In what way, they’re sinners, verse nine, “we have charged both Jews and Greeks are all under sin,” so with that demonstration at the end of verse 19 all the world is accountable to God, and no escaping judgment. Every knee will bow, every tongue will confess. There is no escaping judgment, people say I don’t believe in that – that’s your privilege. It doesn’t change reality. You know we live in this make-believe world; you can be whatever you want to be. You create your own truth; you create your own reality. And we live in a make-believe world and we think it’s wonderful, but it’s not.

“Because by the works of the Law no flesh will be justified, declared righteous in His sight.” So that charge that courtroom scene. The accountability, we are there charged, accountable, but no one will be acquitted by trying to keep the Law, because all the Law could do was clarify the issue of sin. Then back here the Mosaic Law particularly in chapter 2, it reveals our condition. We’ll get this developed more fully when we get to chapter 7 of Romans, the place of the Law, what the Law could do, could not do, but the Law could never save. No one ever at any point in history, in Israel’s history, was saved by keeping the Law, keeping the Ten Commandments. It never was given as a way of salvation. You had the sacrifices because without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness. It takes death, and yet you have poor deceived people thinking, “well I keep the Ten Commandments.” That’s part of the Law, it never was a way of salvation.

We as Christians need to be careful. We get to equate certain moral positions, and we begin to confuse the gospel. There are certain things, yes, we say this is more consistent with Scripture. I’m glad to live in a country where we have freedom to preach God’s word, that we vote for leaders that we hope will be more consistent with the word of God. Sin is a reproach to any nation, but I want to be careful. I can’t change the world by trying to get the right people in and vote, and then we think well they agree with us. I will vote even for nonbelievers that are more in agreement with what I think is consistent with the word of God, even though they’re not doing it because they understand the word of God. We live in a fallen world. We have fallen leaders, fallen rulers’ sinful men, unredeemed. I’m not saying there can’t be a redeemed person, but you know what I’m saying, but I’m not counting on them, that’s not the solution to the world. “We’ve got the balance in the Supreme Court; we get one or two more we’ll be able to turn this country back.” I don’t know what the Lord’s intention for this country is. I’d be happy to have leaders that are more consistent with the word of God, but here’s where we are, so we agree everyone is lost. There is no one no matter what their religious practices, religious statement, all of that we’re all lost. That’s why we carry the gospel to whomever.

That’s why we want to be sure those of our own number, when people begin to function erratically and unbiblically we want to talk to them. I remember a person years ago. He’s passed away since, but he sat in my living room. We were going to discipline him, I said, “you persist in claiming to be a believer, but I see no evidence in your life.” “You can’t shake me I am.” I say “well we’re going to proceed with discipline on the basis of your profession of faith. You’ve been part of this body, but I’m very concerned for you, and I think you ought to be very concerned for yourself.” In his later life I think he revealed he had no interest in the Lord and quickly departed in every way, so we want to be honest and open with one another. Not that were walking around checking each other “oh, I think he stumbled we’d better get after him,” but sometimes we see a pattern developing. We see our young people growing up and moving away from the things of the Lord. Naturally were concerned, we want to talk to them. They’ll reach a point we can’t make them do something, but we do want to present the gospel as clearly as we can and they can’t stop us from praying for them, and pray that the truth will grab hold of them sometime down the road by God’s grace. So we establish sin, the universality of sin. Were ready to go on now and talk about God’s righteousness and it doesn’t get any better than that.

Let’s pray together: Thank you Lord for Your word for its clarity. Lord there is no excuse for not paying attention, taking it to heart. Thank you for communicating to us in a way that by Your grace we can understand, but only when we’re willing to submit to You and have You open our eyes to see what before was unseen. Bless the week before us, Lord, a variety of situations. We’ll be in a variety of places, different opportunities. May we be bold where we are. May we shine bright as lights for Christ. In Christ’s name we pray. Amen.
12