ROMANS CHAPTER 3 VERSES 13-18 - MESSAGES IN ROMANS – CORRUPT BODY PARTS REVEAL THE TRUE MAN - MESSAGE 10
{{Romans 3:13 “Their throat is an open grave. With their tongues they keep deceiving. The poison of asps is under their lips.”
Romans 3:14 “Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness.”
Romans 3:15 “Their feet are swift to shed blood.”
Romans 3:16 “Destruction and misery are in their paths,”
Romans 3:17 “and the path of peace have they not known.”}}
[A]. THE THROAT, THE TONGUE, THE MOUTH, THE FEET – WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME?
It is really great to continue these messages so we can understand these great themes that separated us from God, and what brought us back to God. Romans is Paul’s gospel, or if you like, “The Gospel According to Paul.” Today we will continue where we left off last time and begin with verse 13.
Verse 13 is a quote directly from the Septuagint rendering of this verse – {{Psalm 5:9 “There is nothing reliable in what they say. Their inward part is destruction itself. Their throat is an open grave. They flatter with their tongue.”}} Paul draws on this verse to build up the case that there is not one righteous person in his natural state. Sin has reduced all to a state of putridness in the eyes of God. The following list of verses (13-17) prove the fact.
In Romans 3:13 three parts make up the verse – the throat, the tongue, the lips. Those three are so bad that medical procedures are needed. How putrid is the throat! Imagine an Ear, Nose and Throat specialist saying, “Open wide so I can see the condition of your throat,” and he recoils in horror. He is looking at a grave that’s been opened and the putrid smell fills his surgery. That is not nice imagery at all, but is God’s way of saying the state of the natural man is as putrid as it gets.
So much for the throat. Now look at the tongue and that likewise is revolting. It looks like “a forked tongue,” an expression meaning deceptive; lying, and untrustworthy. What a terrible state that tongue is in. The doctor sees it as twisting all over the place, and there is nothing he can do for the patient.
Yes, that is right. There is nothing the medical profession can do for the terrible condition that this sickness has on all human beings. It is a spiritual disease, not medical. Notice Paul said the tongue KEEPS deceiving. Man can not help it. No matter what he does, he can not help himself. A river will always run downwards, never upwards, and man’s natural path is downwards, never upwards. His is a spiritual problem that only the Creator can remedy.
The third problem with this man is one with his lips, and no medical doctor wants to help him because he can’t do it. The poison is too great. Yes, the poison of asps is under their lips, and when the mouth is opened the lips send out poisonous words, degenerate words, hurting words, threating words and blasphemous words. The only writer other than Paul to mention the tongue in the New Testament in a bad sense is James – {{James 3:5-6 so also, the tongue is a small part of the body and yet it boasts of great things. Behold, how great a forest is set aflame by such a small fire. The tongue is a fire, the very world of iniquity. The tongue is set among our members as that which defiles the entire body, and sets on fire the course of our life, and is set on fire by hell.” James 3:8 “but no one can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil and FULL OF DEADLY POISON.”}}
Barnes – [[“With their tongues ... In their conversation, their promises, etc., they have been false, treacherous, and unfaithful.”]] {{Psalm 140:3 “They sharpen their tongues as a serpent; poison of a viper is under their lips. Selah.”}}
Further to that, I thought the comments made by Barnes were interesting – [[“The poison of asps - The asp, or adder, is a species of serpent whose poison is of such active operation that it kills almost the instant that it penetrates, and that without remedy. It is small, and commonly lies concealed, often in the "sand" in a road, and strikes the traveller before he sees it. It is found chiefly in Egypt and Lybia. It is said by ancient writers that the celebrated Cleopatra, rather than be carried a captive to Rome by Augustus, suffered an asp to bite her in the arm, by which she soon died. The precise species of serpent which is here meant by the psalmist, however, cannot be ascertained. All that is necessary to understand the passage is, that it refers to a serpent whose bite was deadly, and rapid in its execution.
Is under their lips - The poison of the serpent is contained in a small bag which is concealed at the root of the fangs. When the fang is struck into the flesh, the poison is pressed out, through a small hole in the fang, into the wound.”]]
Verse 14 “Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness.” Paul draws on Psalm 10 for his reference – {{Psalm 10:7 “His mouth is full of CURSES and DECEIT and OPPRESSION; under his tongue is MISCHIEF and WICKEDNESS.”}} What a terrible person that would be, to be in his presence, and to experience all that horrible stuff, but that is a description of ourselves as the unconverted man, when we were children (offspring) of the devil, and behaved like our “father”.
The mouth betrays the heart and the mind; indeed, it betrays the spiritual condition of people. When we look a bit deeper into Psalm 10:7 we see the mouth and tongue produce cursing, deceitful speech, words of oppression; it creates mischief (trouble) and enacts wickedness. The first lies from a poisonous serpent tongue were spoken in Eden, “You shall not die,” for Satan is a liar, and the father of lies.
Here is a very tiny part of one of my poems from a major work called, “The Mystery of Iniquity”. These verses here are about Satan’s role as the LIAR and FATHER OF LIES – (I have had to insert breaks between stanzas because SermonCentral can’t format poems)
So rightly called “the devil”, “the liar”
From ancient times hostile to God and man,
And scheming maliciously, who’ll not tire
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In efforts to frustrate God ev’ry plan,
As evil works insidiously well
Through every nation, language and clan.
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You wicked satyr, who tricks men to dwell
With unrewarded toil through years of life,
To pass unsaved, with hardened hearts, to hell.
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From ancient times “a hairy one” so rife
In the display of leaven’s corruption,
So skilled, perverse, progenitor of strife.
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Great liar he is: from truth will extract
Sufficient, to dress a falsehood’s physique.
The father of lies works hard to subtract,
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By using his guile and proven technique,
To dilute, distort, and to contradict.
The “greyness of truth” – the devil’s mystique.
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Enhance the lie to strengthen the verdict,
That mankind endorses with fervent zeal.
Their judgment, (yet Satan’s), will contradict
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The standards of God; His truth won’t appeal,
But atheism, agnosticism –
Beliefs that people will never repeal!
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These system beliefs, like scepticism,
The father of lies has infiltrated,
So evolution, and mysticism
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And rationalism, incubated
In student minds with lying deceit -
The father of lies is demonstrated!
Ron Ferguson From Part 4 of The Mystery of Iniquity – THE NAMING
Let us look at the next item and it is so unpleasant. {{Romans 3:15 “Their feet are swift to shed blood.”}} Paul draws on an Old Testament quote again which is this one – {{Isaiah 59:7-8 “THEIR FEET RUN TO EVIL, AND THEY HASTEN TO SHED INNOCENT BLOOD. Their thoughts are thoughts of iniquity. Devastation and destruction are in their highways. They do not know the way of peace, and there is no justice in their tracks. They have made their paths crooked. Whoever treads on them does not know peace.”}} What a terrible situation that verse is describing. Murder, killing, murder!
What was the first sin ever to be committed in all of God’s creation? It was pride when Satan sought to be equal with God and to dethrone Him. What was the second sin to have been committed? That was disobedience when Eve and Adam disobeyed God. What was the third sin to be committed according to what is recorded in the bible? It was murder when Cain rose up against his brother. Since that time killing and murder has not ceased.
In the Romans verse it says feet are swift to shed blood. That means there is no hesitation, and this message is not one fully about murders and killing but a little I will say. God says it is feet that shed blood, not hands as you would expect. I think it means the eagerness to kill and murder, the feet carrying them to their victims. As I understand it there are three categories of murder that come to mind.
The FIRST is the willful killing of another in murder, assassination, planned homicide, etc. The United States leads the world in this with 21,570 homicides in 2021. Many though throughout the world are undetected or reported.
The SECOND comes from war, usually satanically inspired war, for Satan was a murderer from the beginning and his followers willingly do his bidding. Consider for a moment wicked, vile men like Putin with millions of deaths on his hands, and Xi of China with millions also – Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, and the greatest of them all, Mao Zedong with 80 million Chinese deaths. All will give account one day. To be punished eternally for one murder will be so horrible for the perpetrator, but for 80 million . . .
The THIRD category of the swift shedding of blood with a stated number of 73 million deaths a year is murder in the most callous way. I speak about abortion and the 73 million are the ones that are clinically reported. The real number could be closer to 100 million.
That will do on this matter. We are building up a very polluted picture of a maggot-infested picture of humanity, seething in the stink of sour milk (refer to last message).
[B]. DESTRUCTION AND MISERY ON THE HUMAN PATH
We come to the next verse – {{Romans 3:16 “Destruction and misery are in their paths,”}}
Picture this scene for a moment. A man who is blind finds himself in a totally unknown area that has jagged rocks and sudden pits about one metre deep and a tangle of vines with sharp thorns. He is being hunted so must keep moving because danger and death is following him. He stumbles, falls, and suffers severe cuts and lacerations. That is an unpleasant picture but I see it related to verse 16 where destruction and misery are in his path. It is a picture of the whole world.
The natural man is blind and is living in darkness, spiritually that is, so the way before him he can not see though his physical eyes can see. People go from one sadness to another, from one tragedy to another but what is sad is there is no comfort in God because the Creator has been rejected so they suffer alone. Paul is painting a very desolate canvas here and the subject is wrought with great problems that only God can solve. The word “destruction” means to dash to pieces”. O, unsaved world, turn to the Lord Jesus for salvation and continue your journey with spiritually opened eyes.
Verse 16 draws again of the Isaiah verses we looked at above - {{Isaiah 59:7-8 “Their feet run to evil, and they hasten to shed innocent blood. Their thoughts are thoughts of iniquity. DEVASTATION AND DESTRUCTION ARE IN THEIR HIGHWAYS. They do not know the way of peace, and there is no justice in their tracks. THEY HAVE MADE THEIR PATHS CROOKED. Whoever treads on them does not know peace.”}}
Destruction is always a mark of Satan because he is the great destroyer. One of his names is APOLLYON which means “destroyer”. This is part of the passage in Revelation from one of the trumpet judgements God sends on the world in the Tribulation. It is describing the demonic horde led by Satan – {{Revelation 9:9-11 “They had breastplates like breastplates of iron and the sound of their wings was like the sound of chariots, of many horses rushing to battle. They have tails like scorpions, and stings, and in their tails is their power to hurt men for five months. They have as king over them, the angel of the abyss. His name in Hebrew is Abaddon, and in the Greek he has the name Apollyon.”}} There are some who say Apollyon here is a very powerful demonic angel but some (including me) believe it is Satan.
Satan destroys human interactions; and harmony in the world; he destroys the credibility of the word of God with evolution and liberalism; he destroys children’s sexuality and gender with WOKE policies and sexual grooming in schools; he destroys the churches of Christians in many parts of the world. There are so many examples we could cite proving Satan to be the great destroyer.
{{Romans 3:17 “and the path of peace have they not known.”}} How much peace is on the earth? Very little. No peace in war; no peace in much of daily living; no peace in a number of families; no peace in many governments; no peace in some personal relationships, and the list continues. The Lord said something very important to His disciples – {{John 14:27 “Peace I leave with you. My peace I give to you, not as the world gives, do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, nor let it be fearful.”}} From that verse a lack of peace causes troubles lives and fearful people. That is what is in the world but the Lord’s people should not be that way. Keep your faith strong in the Lord
[C] GOD IS DISREGARDED - THERE IS NO FEAR OF GOD
{{Romans 3:18 “There is no fear of God before their eyes.”}}
We will do one more of these descriptions and it is a crucial one, for I believe it influences all the others. Fearing God means acknowledging His position, His might, His awe, His majesty, His great benevolence, and His authority. Humanism dismisses and curses God and establishes its own authority, a godless confusion of death. Paul probably alluded to this verse – Psalm 36:1 “Transgression speaks to the wicked deep in his heart; there is no fear of God before his eyes.”}}
Take note of these two verses – {{Psalm 111:10 “THE FEAR OF THE LORD IS THE BEGINNING OF WISDOM. A good understanding have all those who do His commandments. His praise endures forever.”}} AND {{Proverbs 1:7 “THE FEAR OF THE LORD IS THE BEGINNING OF KNOWLEDGE. Fools despise wisdom and instruction.”}}
From those two verses we can conclude that without the proper fear of the Lord, there can be no true wisdom and knowledge. Of course there is man’s wisdom the bible calls foolishness, and there is knowledge just on the human level. God has no part in man’s calculations and that is the reason why the world is in the depraved state it is today.
Notice what the great king Jehoshaphat said to the judges he appointed – {{2Chronicles 19:7 “Now then LET THE FEAR OF THE LORD BE UPON YOU. Be very careful what you do, for the LORD our God will have no part in unrighteousness, or partiality, or the taking of a bribe.”}}
Moses spoke directly to the nation with these words – {{Deuteronomy 10:12 “Now, Israel, what does the LORD your God require from you, but TO FEAR THE LORD YOUR GOD, to walk in all His ways and love Him, and to serve the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul.”}} Peter penned this in singling out four points – {{1Peter 2:17 “Honour all men. Love the brotherhood. FEAR GOD. Honour the king.”}}
I leave this one with you without comment – {{Proverbs 10:27 “The fear of the LORD prolongs life, but the years of the wicked will be shortened.”}}
I think commentator Barnes makes a very sound comment – [[“The word "fear" here denotes "reverence, awe, veneration." There is no such regard or reverence for the character, authority, and honour of God as to restrain them from crime. Their conduct shows that they are not withheld from the commission of iniquity by any regard to the fear or favour of God. The only thing that will be effectual in restraining people from sin, will be a regard to the honour and Law of God.”]]
It will be noted in this verse 18 in chapter 3 that Paul says there is no fear of God before their eyes. I have thought about the significance of “before their eyes” in this verse. The eyes see and map out the way ahead helping the body to plan its way. Therefore we can conclude that mankind pursues its way, forging ahead without any reference to God whatever. All advancement is done on the most absolute humanistic level. That is what we are in such a mess with fools making political decisions of the most stupid kind.
Again I will give one quote from Barnes I found revealing. He thinks “eyes” complete the depravity of the body’s senses. Here is the quote – [[It may be observed further, that the apostle has given a view of human depravity which is very striking. He does not confine it to one faculty of the mind, or to one set of actions; he specifies each member and each faculty as being perverse, and inclined to evil. The depravity extends to all the departments of action. The tongue, the mouth, the feet, the "lips," are all involved in it; all are perverted, and all become the occasion of the commission of sin. The entire man is corrupt; and the painful description extends to every department of action.]]
We will stop there today and take up the rest of the chapter another time. May the Lord bless you all.
ronaldf@aapt.net.au
