Series Title: The Line in the Sand
Title: The Line Judge
Scripture: Romans 3:9-18
(Romans 3:9-18) What shall we conclude then? Are we any better ? Not at all! We have already made the charge that Jews and Gentiles alike are all under sin. 10 As it is written: "There is no one righteous, not even one; 11 there is no one who understands, no one who seeks God. 12 All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one." 13 "Their throats are open graves; their tongues practice deceit." "The poison of vipers is on their lips." 14 "Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness." 15 "Their feet are swift to shed blood; 16 ruin and misery mark their ways, 17 and the way of peace they do not know." 18 "There is no fear of God before their eyes."
Looking through the words contained in the Epistle to the Romans at the everyday news that has highlighted this week demonstrates to us just how timeless God’s Word is.
Up to this juncture in Romans, Paul has pointed out that the heathen are lost because, even though they had the witness of both nature and conscience, they suppressed God’s truth to them. Paul has also shown that the moral man is lost because even though he outwardly put on a façade to judge the heathen, inwardly he was guilty of the same sins. Likewise the Jew is lost because he has not kept the law, and neither his circumcision, ancestry, nor arguments can save him from the condemnation of disobedience.
(Romans 3:23) for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,
It doesn’t take a scholar to see the applications and principles found in Romans can be applied throughout every vestige or hint of human thought or action. And, dare we say, much more today than ever before?
Every day of every week there is something going on in the world that proclaims the inferiority of someone else. Human beings are fast to point out others’ shortcomings. And, as time goes on, it seems as if this finger pointing is becoming even more brutal. It seems that we talk about others or look at news reports to assure us of just how good we are. Or, to calm any fears that might be getting out of hand in our own actions.
We quickly report how a man kept his daughter hidden in his basement for 24 years and fathered several children. We quickly bring down judgment on this man, while in the back of our own minds we’re happily saying, “I’m not like that!”
The world is swift to renounce a man or woman for making racist remarks in the media, while at the same time feeling quite content and justified for the personal release of such allegations, “because, well, I’m not like that!”
Inside the Christ-less soul, inside the Jesus-deprived heart, there is a deep down sense of imperfection or insufficiency that has been repudiated for a time, it’s been placated for a short season. They think that they have, in their own minds, reached a point of self-actualization through a flippant comparison or the unwarranted condemnation.
A human being without Christ is a lonely individual that has no release for their own imperfections and thus they attack others to harvest a short-term release. A human being without Christ is a lonely individual that has no release for their own inadequacies and insufficiencies and thus they attempt bring others down to their own level to placate those inadequacies and insufficiencies.
Conversely, a Christian has such a release for those imperfections. It is to the detriment of a believer that there is a balm in Gilead.
Refrain
There is a balm in Gilead
To make the wounded whole;
There is a balm in Gilead
To heal the sinsick soul.
1.
Sometimes I feel discouraged,
And think my work’s in vain,
But then the Holy Spirit
Revives my soul again.
Refrain
2.
Don’t ever feel discouraged,
for Jesus is your friend,
and if you look for knowledge
he’ll ne’er refuse to lend.
Refrain
3.
If you can’t preach like Peter,
If you can’t pray like Paul,
Just tell the love of Jesus,
And say He died for all.
Refrain
There is a Balm in Gilead, and He is Jesus. Your release from all your imperfections, inadequacies, and insufficiencies are found in separating yourself from the world and joining Christ, through faith in the finished work of the cross.
There is a balm in Gilead
To make the wounded whole;
There is a balm in Gilead
To heal the sinsick soul.
If you can’t preach like Peter,
If you can’t pray like Paul,
Just tell the love of Jesus,
And say He died for all.
But, not all find that release as not all that are in Christ rely on Christ, and sadly they find their release in the ways f the world.
The actions of those of the world that condemn, judge, put down, or otherwise criticize others to find that temporary release within themselves can be compared to a procedure found in the medical world. As an example, if a person suffers a head trauma and develops pressure within the skull, surgeons use a trepan [tri-pan], a small circular saw, to relieve the pressure. They cut out a circular portion of the skull, to allow release of the pressure so the brain will not suffer any further damage.
Proclaiming the inferiority of another culture, another group, or another person, is essentially a person theoretically trepanning themselves to allow the pressure to escape from a mind that is swollen from its own inadequacies and insufficiencies.
Praise God that He doesn’t operate that way on those that seek Him in faith. No, through the shed blood of Christ on the cross, He crushes and removes from within us the iniquity that once separated us from Him. We are crushed to death in order that we may be raised to new life in Jesus Christ.
That was the whole purpose of the preceding chapters and verses of Romans, to crush to death man and his sin. These early chapters point out that there is no good in any man and that there is no escape for man. Everything must be put away, defeated, squashed, and trampled underfoot. Even self-respect must be taken away by God if man is to be left standing naked, shameless, and bankrupt before God.
(Psalms 51:17) The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.
Only until that happens can God move through His grace to restore the sinner, and not to that point of imperfection that person once had before, but to the more superior position of children of God.
All of that in those first couple of chapters. Now, we reach Romans, chapter three, verse nine, where Paul abruptly stops his discourse, and says, in courtroom terminology,
9 What shall we conclude then? Are we any better ? Not at all! We have already made the charge that Jews and Gentiles alike are all under sin.
We’ve already mentioned in previous messages that the Jews enjoyed certain privileges as the elect nation of God, but these privileges did not include special treatment at the judgment bar of God. Which demands the question:
Are we any better?
Paul’s answer is, of course,
Not at all!
Then he says that the charge has already been made. In any judicial procedure, the first step is to make an accusation or charge against the offender.
In the King James Version, it’s translated as,
for we have before proved both Jews and Gentiles, that they are all under sin;
The Greek word that is used for proved in the KJV, and the words made the charge in the NIV, is a combination of two words that mean before and to bring an accusation against, or press formal charges.
Paul has charged the whole world with being innately sinful. If the evidence is sufficient and the charge can be proved, which it can, then the whole world will be judged guilty before God.
He goes on to say that, Jews and Gentiles alike are all under sin. Which means that mankind is not only prone to sin, but is under the penalty and power of sin.
The accusation has been made. The next step in the judicial procedure is an indictment.
10 As it is written: "There is no one righteous, not even one; 11 there is no one who understands, no one who seeks God. 12 All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one." 13 "Their throats are open graves; their tongues practice deceit." "The poison of vipers is on their lips." 14 "Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness." 15 "Their feet are swift to shed blood; 16 ruin and misery mark their ways, 17 and the way of peace they do not know." 18 "There is no fear of God before their eyes."
When a formal charge is followed by an indictment there must be at least one count. And, usually, the more serious the crime, the more counts to the indictment. Paul immediately follows this pattern by quoting from the Old Testament.
In verses ten through 18, there are no less than fourteen counts brought against the entire world.
There is no one righteous, not even one;
Righteousness is the standard; righteousness is the criterion by which sin is judged. This is the same theme as seen throughout the Old Testament. Paul draws on Psalm 14:1-3:
Psalm 14:1 “…The fool says in his heart, "There is no God." They are corrupt, their deeds are vile; there is no one who does good. 2 The LORD looks down from heaven on the sons of men to see if there are any who understand, any who seek God. 3 All have turned aside, they have together become corrupt; there is no one who does good, not even one.”
11 there is no one who understands,
Again, this is from Psalm 14:2, though not a verbatim quote. We have to know here, that Paul is not talking about mental understanding, but spiritual understanding. The world is not mentally deranged, but spiritually deranged and incapable of any spiritual understanding.
11 “… no one who seeks God.
In Psalm 53:3, the David says the same thing…
(Psalms 53:3) Everyone has turned away, they have together become corrupt; there is no one who does good, not even one.
He says that no one innately turns to or seeks after God because man, instead, is innately sinful. Because man naturally does not seek God, then man gives evidence that he is guilty of unrighteousness. But thanks be to God’s grace, that He draws us to Him, and we then seek out the Lord Jesus Christ…
(John 6:44) "No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up at the last day.
12 All have turned away…
The picture that the original text draws is the same picture that we were presented with on the multiple paths through the jungle while we were ministering in the Philippines. The path that you follow, like your life, would occasionally have paths leading into a new or different direction. And, if you strayed off the ‘right’ path, not necessarily the most pronounced path, you would get lost.
Here, Paul is saying that men have strayed from the path, and that they are unable to return.
12 All have turned away, they have together become worthless;
Man is worthless. Jesus said that salt that has lost its saltiness it’s of no use for anything. Like rotten fruit, man is good for nothing but the junk heap.
12 All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one."
A rotten apple is not good for anything and here Paul says that in man there is no spiritual good, nor is he capable of doing anything spiritually worthy for God. As far as righteousness is concerned, man cannot do anything to please God. We’re reminded of verse six, from Isaiah 63, where the prophet tells us that all of our righteousness is as filthy rags before God.
The seventh, eighth, ninth and tenth counts against man have to do with man’s chief outlet for sin…his mouth.
13 "Their throats are open graves; their tongues practice deceit." "The poison of vipers is on their lips." 14 "Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness."
King David’s prayer for protection in Psalm 5 mentions these open graves. There he says,
(Psalm 5) 8 Lead me, O LORD, in thy righteousness because of mine enemies; make thy way straight before my face. 9 For there is no faithfulness in their mouth; their inward part is very wickedness; their throat is an open sepulcher; they flatter with their tongue.
The only thing coming out of an open sepulcher is a stench, thus it is with one that has turned their back on God. Poison, like the poison that is hidden under the tongue of the asp, is also readily available to those that are without the grace of God in their lives. Tongues that were created to sing praises to God are now cursing. Lips that were created to speak about God’s wonders are now full of bitterness.
These accusations here, as well as the ones before, and after, are all at the ready for the Godless person. You don’t have to teach someone to say bad things. People don’t have to learn to be terrible, it’s already in their system and rooted in personal sin.
15 Their feet are swift to shed blood;
Paul now looks at man’s deeds; his works before God. And, he goes straight to the part of the body that was created to carry the Gospel. Remember what it says in Isaiah?
(Isaiah 52:7) How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of those who bring good news, who proclaim peace, who bring good tidings, who proclaim salvation, who say to Zion, "Your God reigns!"
Instead of carrying the Gospel, the feet of men carry them into injustice, and war with their fellowmen.
16 ruin and misery mark their ways,
You don’t have to look very far into someone’s life to know they are not following God. The words in verse sixteen can be understood to mean two things: (1) man is seeking ruin and misery, and (2) man is receiving ruin and misery.
17 and the way of peace they do not know.
Until man has made peace with his Creator, there is no way that man can have peace with his fellowman. Most savage animals will not destroy their own to feed their hunger, yet man will destroy fellowman for a lot less. Until there is peace with God, there will be no peace with man.
(Isaiah 59:8) The way of peace they do not know; there is no justice in their paths. They have turned them into crooked roads; no one who walks in them will know peace.
18 There is no fear of God before their eyes.
All of the accusations that preceded this final accusation actually stem from this charge.
(Psalms 36:2) For in his own eyes he flatters himself too much to detect or hate his sin.
And, since man has no spiritual understanding of God, and since the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, man will continue to go around and around in a vicious circle until he surrenders to the call of God on his life. Only God, through the finished work of Jesus Christ on the Cross, can remove these stains that stand between us and the Creator of the universe.
