The Verdict Is...Guilty!

A particular judge was overseeing a trial where all 12 jurors were lawyers. And a very simple trial, the evidence was presented in about an hour, seemed like a pretty clear cut and closed case. So the judge was shocked when the jury went into its third day of deliberation. He couldn't figure out what was taking so long. So he sent the bailiff back to check on them with the question, have you reached your verdict yet? And the bailiff came back with their answer, we're still working on our nominating speeches for Foreman. Well, I can assure you, it does not take Paul that long to reach his verdict for the guiltiness of all mankind in sin. We've been looking at a courtroom scene in the first three chapters of Romans and we have seen that Paul, like a good prosecuting attorney, has been laying out carefully the case for all mankind being under sin, guilty of sin. No matter what group of society or mankind you come from, Paul has talked about the openly wicked person, he's talked about the good moral person, he's talked about the religious person, and he said basically all three are guilty. All three are sinners, all three deserve the judgment of God. So Paul has laid out his case very carefully. There has been a very feeble and frantic defense on the part of the religious person saying, I don't think I fit into that category, I don't think I'm guilty, I don't think I deserve to be called a sinner, I'm certainly not guilty of the judgment of God, and Paul has answered that feeble defense very clearly, and now he is ready for his summary arguments. So he stands before the jury and gives his summary arguments, which pulls together the strands of evidence for what it means for man to be condemned as a sinner. And the verdict will be rendered by the judge himself, by God, in the latter part of the passage we'll look at today. So what we're going to see today in verses 9 through 20 of Romans chapter 3 is Paul's summary arguments, pulling together all the evidence speaking to the jury, making his case, this is why mankind is considered simple. And this is, I lay all the evidence out here, now the judge will render a verdict. Now, what we will see as Paul marshals the evidence and makes his case for man's sinfulness, he establishes three things. First of all, Paul establishes the condition of sinfulness. If you're with me in Romans chapter 3, this begin reading in verse 9, where Paul will describe the condition of sinfulness, and first of all, he will talk about sinfulness in terms of total sinfulness. Man is not only sinful, he's totally sinful, so he'll describe the total sinfulness of man. Look at verse 9, what shall we conclude then? You can see Paul's coming to his conclusion of his argument, his closing argument to the jury. Are we any better speaking of the religious person he just talked about? Is the religious person any better than the irreligious person or the openly wicked person? Is there any difference? Is the answer verse 9? Not at all. We have already made the charge that Jews and Gentiles alike are all under sin. Now, what Paul's going to do here is he's going to give seven statements in quick fashion, seven statements that describe the total sinfulness of man. The first one is, all are under sin. Now notice he does not say sins plural, he's not talking about specific individual sins, he's talking about a condition. He's talking about our nature, we are all under sin. Generally speaking, our nature is sinful, we are all under this condition, and we are under that sinful condition in the sense of being imprisoned by it. That's what he means by under sin. It's just as though we are in prison without the possibility of parole, we are in a condition from which we cannot escape. We all come into this world with a sinful nature. We all come into this world with that bent towards sin. And we are under it, we are imprisoned by it, we cannot escape from that condition on our own. Only outside intervention will help us to escape from that condition, but the condition is very clear. We have a spiritual disease, we are all under sin. Second statement that describes this total sinfulness is this. Verse 10, as it is written, there is no one righteous, not even one. And Paul is acting like a very careful attorney. Here he begins a series of quotes from the Old Testament, pulling together the evidence from God's word. In fact this is the longest series of quotes from the Old Testament in all the Bible. Just one after another, whole string of quotes. And the first one he says, there is none righteous, no not one. Not even one. We think of people as being good, we think of some people as doing good things and being good people. And so we use that term in a relative fashion, but what Paul speaking of here is the righteousness of God. And when it comes to measuring up to his perfect consistent righteousness, nobody does that. There is nobody who can measure up to that standard, no matter how good you may be, no matter how moral a person you may be, you are not perfect. You don't measure up to the righteousness of God. So in that sense there is none righteous, not even one. Third statement of man's total sinfulness, verse 11, there is no one who understands. What is it they don't understand? What is it that we don't understand? It is spiritual truth that we don't understand. People's minds can be very sharp about science or art or politics or even the creeds of religions. But as far as really understanding the truth of God grasping it and welcoming it and receiving it, recognizing it's importance, the natural man, the person outside of Christ does not understand this book. Paul says that in 1 Corinthians chapter 2, where he says the natural man cannot understand, cannot receive the things of the spirit of God. Their foolishness unto him. Unsafe people simply do not understand the Bible. In our natural state we don't understand the truths of God's Word unless the Holy Spirit begins to help us understand. But on our own there is no one who understands. Then notice the next statement, no one who seeks God. Men do not seek God. That's a clear statement here of Scripture. Man does not seek God on his own. From the very beginning when man sinned, what did Adam do? He hid. He hid from God. Tried to close himself, cover himself up. He hid from God. God sought him. The Bible says Jesus has come to seek and to save that which was lost. Man in his natural state, as we're born into this world, we do not naturally seek God. Now I know that some may think, well what about all the world religions? Don't people seek after God? Paul says in 1 Corinthians 10-20 that those who offer sacrifices are offering them to idols and not to God. Really that's a satanic delusion. That's not a seeking after God. It is possible for a person to begin to ask questions, to begin to get interested in spiritual things, and to begin to want to know how can I be saved, how can I know that I'm going to heaven. There is that kind of seeking which really is initiated by the work of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit begins to work on people's hearts and draw them to the Savior and people begin to see their need. And they begin to ask questions and in that sense, yes we can speak of people as being seekers. Yes, like Cornelius in Acts chapter 10, who was a religious man, wanted to know how to get to God. God gave him more light. Like Paul said in Acts chapter 17 when he was preaching in Athens, and he said God has made all of mankind and sovereignly made everything so that men might seek him and find him, although he is not far from any of us. So there is a seeking that is prompted by the work of the Holy Spirit when people begin to ask questions and begin to wonder how can I know God, how can I know for sure that I'm going to heaven. There is that kind of seeking, but we do not naturally on our own seek God. That's what Paul's talking about here. The next statement to describe the total sinfulness of man, verse 12, all have turned away. We've abandoned the way of God. We come into this world going the wrong direction, going away from God. We come into this world not knowing how to tell the truth, but knowing how to lie. We come into this world not knowing how to praise, but with an inclination toward criticism. We come into this world with that bent away from God, and we naturally gravitate that direction. That's what Paul's saying. We've turned away. Next statement, they have together become worthless. The word means unprofitable or useless. It was used in Paul's day of spoiled milk or rotten fruit. Now what do you do with rotten fruit? Unless you're really a frantic and obsessive about saving money, you probably throw it away. You probably don't eat it. It's useless. What do you do with spoiled milk? You drink it anyway? I can't spare that 253 bucks. I've got to drink it. No, unless you're crazy. You throw it away. If useless, it's not profitable. That's the idea. Because of our corrupted state, we're like spoiled fruit, spoiled milk or rotten fruit. We're no good for anything and getting ourselves to heaven. We deserve to be cast away. We deserve God's judgment. So we are all worthless in that sense. The last summary statement Paul gives of the total sinfulness of man is there is no one who does good, not even one. And there might be someone who would object and say, oh, wait a second. What about acts of heroism and courage? What about people who do benevolent things and set up foundations and help people overcome disease and poverty in this world? What about those good deeds of people? No one does any good? Well, certainly people do benevolent acts, kind acts, altruistic deeds. Certainly people do those things. And we certainly should come in those things. But again, Paul is speaking in the context, theologically of our comparison to God. And the goodness that he's speaking of is God's unfailing, persistent, faithful, never an exception, kind of goodness. And in that sense, there's nobody who measures up to God. There is no one who can do the kind of good deeds, the kind of perfect righteousness that will give you a ticket to heaven. There's nobody who can do that. Now, this description of man's total sinfulness, theologians call total depravity, that man is totally depraved. I think a clear biblical understanding of that is not that everybody does as much evil as they can possibly do, or that everybody is as bad a sinner as they can possibly be. But I think a clear biblical understanding of that is that every part of us is corrupted by sin. There's not a part of us that is escaped sin. Our emotions, our will, our mind, every part of our humanity is corrupted by sin. We are totally sinful in that sense. Someone has said it this way, if sin is the color blue, every part of us is some shade of blue. It's not all a deep dark blue, but all of us is some shade of blue. We are totally, apart from God, unable to save ourselves because we are totally under sin, total sinfulness, Paul describes. And this is the testimony of all of scripture, not just this passage. If you were to look at Psalm 14 verses 1 through 3, you would find Paul's quoting a lot. Same thing is said in Psalm 14. Same thing is said in Isaiah 53-6. All we like sheep have gone astray. We have turned every one to his own way. Same thing is said and Ecclesiastes 7-20. There's not a righteous man on the earth, not one that does good perfectly. There's no one on earth that is perfect. Righteous, good in the sight of God. Total sinfulness. But not only is Paul talking about total sinfulness, he's talking about universal sinfulness. Notice if you will, it's not only that we are individually, totally depraved, sinful. That's true of everybody. It's universal. Just glance down through these verses again. Verse 9. All understand. Verse 10. No one writes, not even one. No one understands. No one seeks God. All turned away. They've together as a group become worthless. No one does good. Not even one. I mean, couldn't be any clearer than that. There are no exceptions, Paul, say. Not even the religious man. Not even the good moral man. There are no exceptions. Universally, we are sinners. That's hard for some people to swallow. That's really hard for some people to grasp. And people resist that with everything in them. That in itself is an evidence that our understanding, our mind, has been corrupted by sin. We do not see things as God sees them. My friend, this is not my analysis. It's not even Paul's analysis on his own. This is God's analysis of the human race. Without exception, we are all under sin, captive to the sin nature in a condition that we cannot escape on our own. And we evidence that in so many different ways. If you question that, Paul moves on from the condition of sinfulness to the evidence of sinfulness. And he's going to give us the evidence now. I've made the case that everybody without exception is the sinner. Now, let's pull the go of the strands of evidence. And in verses 13 through 18, he gives us several lines of evidence to prove. Exhibit A, exhibit B, exhibit C. Here it is. We're proving that every person is sinful. First of all, it is seen in our speech. Verses 13 and 14. Paul says, their throats are open graves. Their tongues practice deceit. The poison of viper is on their lips. Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness. Isn't it interesting in describing our speech? And that's the first way Paul gives evidence of our sinfulness. He uses four organs of speech. Everything that is involved in our speech, the throat, the tongue, the lips, and then the mouth as a whole. Just the whole ball of acts here, everything that's involved in speaking is corrupted by sins, tainted by sin. And notice how he describes it. Verse 13, their throats are open graves. That would be a disgusting image in the first century. Before the days of everyone having their body preserved, if you will, before the days of enbalming and the protection of the body with vaults and sealed caskets, bodies would decompose fairly quickly. In wooden boxes placed in the earth, or in open tombs laid on a slab with some spices wrapped around them to try to keep the smell from becoming too apparent. I mean bodies would decay and decompose very quickly. An open grave was a disgusting thought. And what Paul is saying here, this is God's analysis of the human race, our throat, that from which our speech begins, the very origination of our speech, is like an open grave. Think about it for a moment. I think we'd have to agree. I found it all the blasphemy, the cursing, the pride, the lies, the flattery, the self-centeredness, the gossip, the criticism, and on and on the list could go of all of the ways in which our throat is an open sepliker. This world is full of that kind of profanity. All of us, to some degree, struggle with our speech being completely pure. The Cherokee Indian was at a school in a classroom describing the history and culture of Cherokee Indians. An interesting observation that he made in that school classroom was that there are no curse words in the Cherokee language. And one little guy in the back of the room picked up on that and raised his hand and said, well now what do you do then when you hit your thumb with a hammer? And the Cherokee Indian said, that's when we use your language. Plenty of evidence, isn't there of corrupt language in mankind? Paul says in describing this speech, their throats are open-grazed, but he goes on to say their tongues practice deceit. Open-grave is a disgusting symbol. This is a sweet, this is a good thing, this is smooth, this is pleasant, looks good, deceit. One of the best examples of deceit that I can think of is found in the book of 1 Samuel, chapter 18, when Saul is trying to kill David, but he hadn't gotten to the actual thrust of doing it with his own hand. And David says to David, here is my older daughter, Marib, I will give her to you in marriage. I want to pause here for just a moment. Notice what he says, only serve me bravely and fight the battles of the war. Now look at what he's saying. He's saying, David, you go do God's business, you fight God's battles, and he's talking to you in real spiritual language, right? I believe in God's battles, you fight God's battles, you do God's work, and I'll reward you for that. But look at how the verse ends, what he's really thinking, he says on the next slide, for Saul said to himself, I will not raise a hand against him, let the Philistines do that. You see, he's saying one thing to David, but another thing he's thinking in his heart, and everyone of us in this room has done that. We see the seat, where we say one thing, think another, where we smooth things out, we make it sound good, but we're thinking something else. And all the time David was being told by Saul, go fight the Lord's battles, I'm behind you all the way. What Saul's really thinking is so that I don't have to kill him, I'm going to put him out there for the Philistines to kill. That's what he's really thinking. The seat in speech. Paul further describes the simpleness of our tongues this way, the poison of vipers is on their lips. A viper or an asp was a poison to snake in the first century. The same idea that we would think of as a poison to snake today, a rattlesnake or something with fangs folded back, and when that mouth opens the fangs flip into place and those poison sacks shoot the poison as there's a quick attack. The idea of this imagery is a sudden sharp sting with our speech. Probably every one of us in this room has done that as well. We have struck like a viper with a poison that is a sharp quick stinging speech to someone. Buddy describes also the simpleness in our speech in this way. Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness for 14. Mouth is full of cursing and bitterness. Cursing here is not curse words, it's not profanity. Curs here is literally to place or speak a curse on someone. It was the idea of wishing someone harm, of saying something about them that is malicious, that would wish them harm. It's that kind of curse. It's bitterness in speech, that wishes a person would be harm or would suffer or would get a dose of their own medicine or whatever we might call it. I think if we are honest we would say, okay Paul, you can stop with that. I see the evidence. I know I'm guilty. There's evidence if we just look at our speech that we are sinners. So the evidence in our speech but also there is evidence in our actions. Look at verse 15. Their feet are swift to shed blood. The idea of violence, murder, man's feet are swift to move in that direction. We have become a culture of violence. One sociologist has said that by the time a child is 16 years old they have seen 33,000 murders on television, 200,000 acts of violence. Obviously it's not just television now. It's video games and the computer. But there's clearly a rampant push toward violence in our culture. If that's what our children are growing up seeing in this same sociologist said in one very familiar, if I call the name you would recognize it, well it's transformers. In one very familiar cartoon there is an act of violence or attempted murder every 30 seconds. So should we be surprised? Should we be surprised when children start acting that out? Should we be surprised when in Sweden? The Scandinavian Sweden Norway and Denmark, the Scandinavian network takes off of the network of very popular children's cartoon because of the death of a little five year old girl. A little five year old girl on a playground playing with playmates and three boys ages five and six, imitating the kicks and punches they had seen in power rangers. Kill that little girl, be it to the point that she died of her injury. Should we be surprised though when we cultivate a culture of violence? Should we be surprised when we read stories about little Eric Morse in South Side Chicago in the projects being tossed out of a window 14 floors to his death? You know who perpetrated that crime? Two boys ages 10 and 11. You know why they threw him out of window because he would not steal for them. Five year old boy, they were trying to get him to steal candy for them, he wouldn't do it. So they took him up to their playhouse, 14th floor empty apartment, took him to the window through him out. We have a culture of violence, all you have to do is read the newspaper. It's in there every day, it's on the evening news every day. Surely not everybody is guilty of those kinds of acts of violence. But mankind as a whole is under the guilt of violence and every one of us has that potential in our hearts for violence. Paul described the actions in another way, verse 16, ruin and misery mark their ways. Destruction, misery. You remember Andy Griffiths show what a great program, 249 episodes that several generations have just loved. A great, clean program. Based in Mayberry, right? And Mayberry was actually a pattern patterned after Andy Griffiths hometown of Mount Erie, North Carolina. An idyllic setting where you've got to share if you don't even have a gun. You've got a deputy, he's only allowed to carry one bullet and that's in his pocket. What a deputy he was. But that idyllic setting really doesn't exist, does it? It really doesn't. Did you read in the news accounts back in April that Betty Lou Lynn, who played Barney's girlfriend, Thomaloo, in Mayberry and Andy Griffiths show. She had moved back to Mount Erie as an 83 year old woman to get away from Los Angeles. She had been attacked and robbed three times in Los Angeles. And she thought, okay, I don't know if I'm going back to Mayberry. She had not been there long when in April she was attacked and robbed in Mount Erie, North Carolina as she was shopping. There is no place that has not been touched by the destruction and the ruin that mankind leaves behind him. We're guilty in our actions. Paul also describes it this way in verse 17, the way of peace they do not know. Again, just look at the newspaper, look at the evening news. We do not know peace, do we? Will Durant, a common or well known historian back in 1968, said that from his historical research in the 3,421 years before 1968, there had only been a total of 268 years where there was no war on planet Earth. And I don't think there's been a year since 1968, so I don't think we've improved the ratio any. Just look at your newspaper, look at the situation in the Middle East right now. What's happened in the last week? And all of the charges, many of them false, that are floating around and the tender box is ready to explode. And Iran, you know, just the possibilities are horrific. Korea, what's happening in Korea this week? Think about that. USA Today said on Friday that if that war breaks out, it will be horrific in its destruction, probably more than any war we've seen in recent times. I mean, we're right on the verge of seeing it all happen again. We always are because man does not know peace. Paul is saying this is just another evidence, another exhibit of the fact that man is sinful. So it's seen in our speech, it's seen in our actions, it's also seen in our attitude toward God. Verse 18, there is no fear of God before their eyes. Fear of God. People talk about that a lot. People talk about, I'm going to put the fear of God in you. That's just a slaying expression. People don't understand what the fear of God is. The fear of God is a recognition of all that God is. And the only appropriate response to that is a reverence and a submission to his will. A recognition of the character of God and all of his glory and his attributes. Responding with a humble submission to him. That's the fear of God. But man does not naturally have that fear of God. Man may fear meeting some guy in a back alley somewhere, but he doesn't fear meeting God in judgment. Doesn't even think about that. And that's the reason for the actions and the speech and everything else because no fear of standing before God someday. So the evidence of sinfulness is seen in our speech, in our actions, in our attitude toward God. And so now we're ready for the verdict. Paul has given his summary statement, his summary argument. It's very clear. He's made it clear. The condition of sinfulness spreads to all mankind and to every part of our being. And there's plenty of evidence that we are all sinners. Now here's the verdict, which is seen in the knowledge of sinfulness through the law of God versus 1920. Very quickly, Paul gives us four purposes for the law. What was God's law designed to do? What was the Old Testament law, the Mosaic law, the Ten Commandments? What was that designed to do? What is the Bible as a whole designed to do? All of God's commands. What is it designed for? Paul here specifically speaking of the Mosaic law says this. Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law so that every mouth may be silenced. We're getting ready for the verdict here. And God says, first of all, the first purpose of the law is to silence us. I can remember all three of our girls when they were young, Amy, Ruth, Missy, all three of them. At times when we would be carrying something out of the house or to another room in the house or in the house. And they would say, let me carry that daddy. And I knew very well it was too heavy for them. But they kept persisting. I can carry that. Let me carry it. And finally I would say, okay, go ahead, carry that. And they would struggle to pick it up and move it and maybe get it a couple of feet. They would struggle. Daddy, I can't do it. You carry it. They were silenced. That wasn't my intention to do that rudely or in an accrued way. But I knew that all of my attempts to tell them that they couldn't do it would fall on deaf ears. They needed to see by trying themselves. And that's the purpose of the law. God gave the law not as a way to get men to heaven. God knew we couldn't do it. He wanted to prove it to us. And so his law basically shows us. You can't do it. You say you want to get the heaven? Okay, here's the way. Here's the standard. You do all of this. You'll be good. You'll be righteous. And man can't do it. He can't lift the load. And so God says, see, the defendant now is silenced in the courtroom. That's purpose of the law. Second purpose of the law in verse 19. Look at it. It says to those who are under the law so that every mouth may be silenced and the whole world held accountable to God. It's to the clearest guilty. The law declares this guilty. The law not only says, see, you can't do it, but you are guilty of not being able to do it. You're guilty of violating the law. You're guilty of violating God's holy standards. We're all guilty. And that's the verdict. We're guilty. Third purpose of the law. Verse 20. Therefore, no one will be declared righteous in his sight by observing the law. The purpose of the law is not to make us right with God. That's not the purpose. Never was the purpose of the law. God never gave the Old Testament law as a means for people to work their way to heaven. It was always designed to show man that he couldn't measure up. God never gave the Ten Commandments for you to try to keep to get to heaven. God never gave the sermon on the Mount for you to try to live by to get to heaven. The purpose of God's law is to show us that we can't do it. And so we need a righteousness that comes from outside ourselves. Purpose of the law was never to make us right with God. It was to show us that we're sinful. And that's the fourth purpose of the law. He ends up saying in verse 20. Rather, through the law, we become conscious of sin. It's to show us our sinfulness. That's the purpose of the law. So the verdict is very clear. And the law makes it clear. We're guilty. We cannot get to heaven on our own. We cannot be saved by our own good works, by our own good deeds, by becoming religious, by turning over a new leaf, by treating our family better, by getting rid of this sin or that sin or the other sin. You can't do it. That's the purpose of the law. And the verdict is clear. We are all guilty. We are all under sin. We are all apart from God and we all need a savior. Now, I know what some of you are probably thinking. I don't come to church to get depressed. This has been a depressing message. Now, let's talk about how bad we are, how sinful we are, every one of us, you know, pointing the finger at you and three pointing back at me. We're all terrible. I know that can sound awful negative. But that very fact makes it positive. Because what God is telling us is, no, you cannot do it on your own. I'm letting you know that. You know, it's like if you have something poisoned in your home and you don't want your child to get into it or be hurt by it. How do you keep them from being hurt by it? You change the label so that they won't realize it's poison? Of course not. You tell them, hey, this is poison. You've got the skull and the crossbones and everything else on it. You've hired it away from them if necessary. But you make it very clear. This is bad. This is poison. And you're doing them a favor when you do that. And so really, I'm doing you a favor this morning by telling you how bad we really are. Because God says now that you realize how bad you really are and you're ready for the remedy. And I've got a remedy for you. I've got a way to be delivered from all of that. I've got a way to be delivered from all of that condemnation and it's through Christ. And in the next section of the book, Paul is going to open up how God has devised a plan for us to be delivered from our sin. But it's only through Christ. You cannot do it on your own. And if there's anyone here that thinks by just being a little better, trying a little harder, coming to church more often, I can get there. I can do it. I know I can be better. You cannot. You cannot get the heaven that way. You need a savior. You need Christ. And if you've never seen that with Paul's scathing, denunciation of mankind, helping us to see that we're all sinners, I hope you see it this morning. And more than that, I hope you see that Jesus offers to deliver you from all of this. Let's pray together.