Our scripture reading this morning is worthy of your attention and standing to hear it read. We will be reading from Romans chapter 3. Paul has made the case and has set the stage that every mother's child is a sinner. the irreligious and the religious alike. He picks up in verse 9 of Romans chapter 3, he's going to use the word we, and he's speaking of the religionists, the Jews of his day, those that had the Oracles of God entrusted to them, those that have the promises and the patriarchs. And then he brings the closing argument in the court case that leaves no room for debate about the verdict that is to be rendered for every person in the high court of God. There is no room for a not guilty plea. There is no room for an insanity plea. There is only room for the judgment to be handed down. Verse nine, Paul says, what then? Are we better? Not at all. For we have already charged that both Jews and Greeks are all under sin. As it is written, there is none righteous, not even one. There is none who understands. There is none who seeks for God. All have turned aside. Together they have become worthless. There is none who does good. There is not even one. Their throat is an empty tomb, an open tomb. With their tongues they keep deceiving. The poison of asps is under their lips, whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed blood. Destruction and misery are in their paths, and the path of peace they have not known. There is no fear of God before their eyes. Now we know that whatever the law says, it speaks to those who are in the law. So that every mouth may be shut and all the world may become accountable to God. Because by the works of the law, no flesh will be justified in his sight. For through the law comes the knowledge of sin. But now, apart from the law, the righteousness of God has been manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets, even the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all those who believe. For there is no distinction, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. being justified as a gift by his grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus, whom God publicly displayed as a propitiation in his blood through faith for a demonstration of his righteousness. Because in the forbearance of God, he passed over the sins previously committed. for the demonstration of his righteousness at the present time so that he would be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in jesus where then is boasting it is excluded by what kind of law of works no but by a lot of faith for we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from works of the law. Or is God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles also? Yes, of Gentiles also. Since indeed, God, who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through that faith, is one. One God for all people. One salvation for all people. And it is a sufficient salvation for all people because all people start in the same place. And we have one hope. Father, we thank you for the opportunity we have to be here this Lord's Day. We pray that you will take the time that we will spend here and make it profitable for us, make it honorable for you. Lord, mold and shape us into the image of the Savior in this day that is like no other day. Do the work that you only ever accomplish in the meeting of your people. Take the preaching of your word and the singing of your praise and cause your glory to leave this place. through what is done and said and what is received and how we apply it. May we walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which we have been called. And may the Savior receive the glory that He is due. It is in His name that we pray. Amen. Open your Scripture book. Meet me in Romans chapter 3. We're going to talk about this Savior in light of what He has done but to see what He has done in light of who we are. And to see what He has done in a greater light because of what He has responded to. I've told you we know what God is like by looking at what He has done. And friends, what He has done for you and what He has done for me is an inexplicable thing. There is no reason that you can concoct, there is no reason that you could ever contrive or come up with on your own that could begin to explain why God would love the likes of you and me. And certainly you could never explain why he sent his son to die for you. Why would anyone give their child up for you? Now you might be willing to give up your child for you, but nobody else would. But I'll tell you this, there's not a child in this room that stacks up to the Son of God. And God gave the very best that he had for the likes of you and I. And if we are to see him in the fullest glory that we can, we need to understand who it is that he has done this most magnanimous thing for. This provision of salvation, we need to understand the glory of the provision by understanding the ones for whom it has been provided. And to understand that, we need the help of the Word of God, because you and I, on our own, can never begin to understand or even describe what it is that you and I are and why it is that we are so much in need of a Savior. We might have some twinges about guilt, and we feel bad about something that maybe we did at one point in life, or maybe we crossed a really big line and created some egregious problem in our life. But friends, no matter what you think of yourself, you never see yourself in low enough of a light to correspond to what this Word of God actually has to say about you and I. You say, yeah, but when I read that book, I feel this big. Well, that's a problem, because you're not that big. That's far too big. And if we're looking at what the unmerited favor of God that he has full control over, We look at what God prophesied in the future, and he has prophesied and told us what the future is going to be. I refrain from saying that he predicted it, because he did not necessarily predict it in the modern idea of predicting it. Because when we think of someone predicting something, we think of a meteorologist predicting the weather. And they're right, occasionally, by accident. At least in South Louisiana. But when God predicts it, it's the idea of speaking it ahead of time. He declares the future. And He declares the future, not because He has some premonition and He can just tell what's going to happen. He didn't look into the future and say, oh, well, I know that this, that, and the other is going to happen, and I've done the equation, and I know what's going to happen. That is not what God did. That is a pagan idea. What God has done is declared the end from the beginning, because He is in full control of every moment in between. He is sovereign over all things, and when it comes to the distribution of His grace and His unmerited favor, friends, He is just as in charge of that as He is everything else. No one forces God's hand to do anything. It belongs to Him. He uses it and distributes it as He sees fit. And if we're going to set the foundation for the teaching of the sovereign grace of God in all things, and especially looking at this most magnanimous thing that He has ever done in providing the grace that saves sinners, We need to understand the basis upon which he moves to accomplish this saving work. And that basis is he comes to a morally corrupt, radically depraved group of individuals known as mankind. Doing some reading this week on some of the atrocities that happened in World War II. And reading what what Hitler did in bringing these people into Austria and into Poland. They annexed a portion of Poland and they turned it into the general government grounds where they built all of these concentration camps. You know that in Auschwitz they murdered 8,000 people a day? To put that into perspective, that's almost the population of the city that's closest to us here. It would be like 75% of Opelousas is being murdered every day. You understand the magnitude of such a thing? They loaded these people onto train cars from all over Europe and stuffed them in the cars so tightly that they couldn't sit down. They had to stand up straight. They were tight. They were in there that tight. Men, women, children, pregnant women. They would stop along the way, and they would throw the dead bodies out and keep going. And we think of things like that, and how could a person do that? It's because people are born in absolute, total corruption of heart, soul, mind, and strength to the core. That is how men and women can do that. And it is men and women like that that need a savior. The problem is we tend to look at that and say, well, that's them and this is me. That's not right. That was them because they had that opportunity. It's not you because you didn't have that opportunity. Go home and look up Jedwabne, Poland if you can find someone that will give you an honest assessment of what happened in Jedwabne, Poland. When they crossed the demilitarized zone in World War II, Hitler crossed into the Russian side of Poland. They came to Jedwabne, Poland within two weeks They rounded up all of their Jewish neighbors that they had been living alongside and farming with. They knew all of them. 340 of them stuffed into a barn, chained the doors shut, and burned it to the ground because Hitler gave them permission to do it. They had opportunities that you have not had. Man is morally corrupt. And you say, well, that's your opinion. I mean, that's Polish people. It's not the noble Cajun people. We wouldn't do something like that. OK. Well, we're going to look at the gospel today. And the gospel, as I told you last week, the gospel starts with the bad news. Because you have to understand what the reality is, and the reality is terrible. It's worse than terrible. It's worse than you can imagine. It's worse than you ever want to hear. Once you come to understand that, friends, the gospel begins to glow. And the gospel of Jesus Christ begins to find its full and right elevated place of glory. for the unbeliever and the believer alike. We're looking at the present implication of radical corruption, the present implications of total depravity. We looked at the poisonous introduction, the perpetual infection, and last time together we looked at the impacts of radical corruption, the impact of total depravity on the totality of religiosity. Now, I put it in those terms because we tend to think that if we call it total depravity, we mean that someone is as bad as they can possibly be. That is not what that term means. Radical corruption, radical depravity, gets a little more to the idea that it is to the core of who you are. Everything about you is depraved. Everything about you is corrupt. looking at the the impacts of total depravity on the totality of religiosity we looked at every aspect of man's religious observance comes from and is tainted by and corrupted by his sin and there's no escaping it today we want to look at the impacts of corruption, the impact of depravity on the totality of personality, or the totality of personhood. It impacts everything about you. Everything about the sinner is impacted by corruption, by depravity, by the absolute spiritual inability that Paul describes as being dead in transgression and sin. And we will be looking at this in Romans chapter 3. Romans chapter three in verse nine makes the statement that we are all under sin. We are all under the, not just under the effects of it, we are under the authority of it. And you say, well, it's maybe not that bad. Okay, go home and stop sinning. As a believer, go home and stop sinning. I don't mean pick the easiest one to not sin. I don't mean pull a, What do they give up for Mardi Gras? Yeah, but what do they call it? You're just giving up for Lent? There's not a technical term for that? People give up things for Lent. It's easy. It is an act of penance. That's probably what I'm thinking about. If you don't know, it's not in my notes this morning, so I'm grasping the straws here. But what do people give up? They give up stuff they don't want to do anyway. Or they'll think about, well, you know, what would impress Gary and Brother Charles and Brother Matt? What could I give up to impress them? Something that matters to them. I don't even know, I don't know what matters to you, but they'll come up with something that other people think is a big deal. It's not a big deal for me, but they're not gonna pick their favorite sin to give up, because they're not gonna admit that to you openly. I tell you what, you wanna really stretch yourself, give up social media. Give up your cable or internet news feed. Wherever it is that you fill your head with the ideas that tend to drive your life, just give up some of that stuff. People don't do that. Go home and just tell someone to stop a particular sin, and you'll find out just how corrupt they are. They are under sin. You cannot do it. You cannot get out from under it. And everyone is there. So what is the impact of that, and what does it look like? How does that flesh out? Well, that's what Paul describes for us here that we're going to open up, and then we're going to look at where he goes with this through Romans chapter 3, and we will see the depravity and the corruption of man as over against the glory of the incorruptible gospel. The salvation that has been provided for us through the sinless blood of the Son of God, more precious than silver. more precious than gold, more precious than anything. The most precious substance in all of the universe is the shed blood of the Savior for the people of God. And that is exactly what it took. It was not overkill. That is exactly what you and I need. We don't need most of it. We need every drop of it. We don't need some of it. We need absolutely all of the impact that it brings. In verse 10, Romans chapter 3, we see, verses 10 to 12, we see the declaration of corruption. He is making the case. He is stating the obvious. He is saying, this is where man begins. He is declaring it to be the case in no uncertain terms. There's no room for misunderstanding. In verses 10 through 12, he's quoting Psalm 14. He's going back to the Old Testament. He's not just contriving something in this new apostolic age in which he existed and in which he is writing. He is returning to the Word of God, and he is returning to the God of the Word to deliver the message of God. And in verse 10, he says, as it is written. Anytime you see that in Pauline writings, he is referring to the Old Testament. He's referring to the Scripture. As it is written, there is none righteous. And you can stop right there. The emphasis is placed here on the word none. Uch eimi. None there is. None there is that is righteous. Dikaios. It means upright. It means to observe divine laws. It means to be approved of or acceptable to God. None there is that is acceptable to God. None there is that is approved of God. And we look at that and say, well, maybe not none, not even one. There is none righteous, not even one. Just in case you thought maybe there was a loophole, there is none. At the beginning and at the end, none there is that is righteous, not even one. He's going to say that again in verse 12. Verse 11, he comes running at this again. "'Ook, Amee, none there is who understands.'" There is none who understands. There's none that is righteous. Okay, we can kind of handle that, but at least I know something. No, you don't know what you think you know. Before you know anything, you know nothing. There is none who understands. The word means to set or bring things together. It means to take the perception and the thing perceived and put them together. What I see and what I know and I come to a full grasp of understanding of this concept or this reality or this person. There's none who understands. It means to set or join together in the mind. What this means is that no one can get into their mind and to fix into their mind because at the end of chapter one, God has given them over to a reprobate mind, a depraved mind, an unfit mind to do what ought not to be done, a mind that cannot work, a broken mind, cannot understand. This means that no one understands the reality of God and their sin before him. No one understands the reality of God and their sin before Him. No one understands that on their own. They may feel a little guilty culturally, they may feel guilty because they had some kind of a moral compass when they were being raised, but no one really understands the reality of God and their sin before Him. They don't understand who God is. Not who he was, not who he will be, who he is. And he has always been who he is and he will always be who he is. He does not change. He's the same yesterday, today, and forever. The writer, Jesus' brother in his epistle, his half-brother in his epistle, James, says that there is no shadow of turning. God does not move. He is immutable. He does not change. And people don't understand who he is. And when men begin to try to think of God, they always think too small. You need to understand that this God is not just some celestial being that has some emotional feeling toward his creation. This is a God who is holy. He is absolutely, it's not just that he is sinless, there's no sin in him, there's no sin around him. He is elevated and separated above all the things in his creation. He spoke them into existence, he holds them together. He deserves absolute, undying, unalterable allegiance every moment, every breath, every nanosecond, every synapse of your brain. He deserves to have your absolute allegiance and you were born in such a way that you can't offer him that for a millisecond. You do not understand who He is the way that you were born. Men do not understand the reality of God. They don't understand that the wrath of God is ready to be poured out. The fact that no one has been burnt up for their sin as they really should have been if God was just going to be immediately just in all that He does. Because He hasn't done that, they think maybe He won't do that. Friends, the wrath of God is ready to be revealed and He, in His mercy, is withholding it, giving men opportunity to repent. And there is coming a day when he will unleash this like a tsunami in your life, and there will be no one to help you. Nowhere to turn. It will be nothing but the full, unabated wrath of God poured out on the unrepentant sinner for eternity. And even in that state of judgment, you will continue to be a sinner, and there will be no hope for eternity. We say, well, God is love. Yes, we know he is love. You know how? Because we look at the cross. You see the attributes of God on full display. That's what he's going to say later in Romans chapter 3. He made him publicly, made him a propitiation, displayed publicly Christ and his shed blood as the wrath satisfying sacrifice. We know that God is angry at sin because it took the abandoning of his son on the cross of Calvary to pay for the sin of his people. And we know that God is loved because he would be willing to do that for anyone, let alone for the likes of you and I. Men have no capacity to understand God. They see God at best as a Santa Claus, or at worst as Allah, who this contrived idea of God that has no capacity to love. They don't see him as the God that would love so much that he would take it upon himself to secure a people for himself. They don't see that. They have no capacity to understand that on their own. They don't see God as who he is. And I'll tell you what else you don't see by nature. You do not see who you are either. You do not understand who God is and you don't understand who you are. You think far too little of God and far too much of yourself. There is none who understands. There is none who seeks for God. The idea of seeking, it's uch eimi, that none there is that seeks for God, that seek Him out. There are none that investigate for God, for the true God. They have no understanding of who he is, they have no capacity, no desire to seek for God. R.C. Sproul is famous for saying that if there ever was a seeker-friendly church, only God would show up. Because there's none seeking for God. Oh, we need to get the seekers in here. People are not seeking God. They may be seeking a way to get their conscience off their back and they need a list of rules for you to follow so they feel better about themselves and can look down on other people, but they're not looking for God. Well, how do you know that, preacher? Because this just said it. Listen, friends, when your feelings and the word of God don't match up, you've got a problem. And the problem is your feelings, not the word of God. I didn't get enough amens on that, but OK. You can feel that way. None seeks the true God. They only seek a concocted idea of God that is controllable. Verse 12, more of this universal language. He starts with the word all. It's the word pas. It comes from the word pan. It means everyone, and it's used in each one individually and everyone collectively. All have turned aside. That means to deviate from the right course. It's used to say they've shunned. They've turned aside from the right course. They have shunned the right course to follow their own. Remember verse 32 from chapter 1, although they know the decree of the righteous requirement of God, that those who practice such things are worthy of death, they not only do the same but give hearty approval to those who practice it, they shun what is right. They push it aside. They don't want to have it in their life. have turned aside together this is another collective universal word it's a collective and universal guilt together they have become guilty together it says they have become worthless means to make useless or unserviceable they have no use before God friends this is dark language this is every mother's child all together have turned aside and have become, they've made themselves worthless before God. Bukh-e-mi, again, none there is who does good. Who does is the word to make or to render, to produce. There is no one who produces anything of moral goodness or integrity. They do nothing worthy of worthy of being called good. And then he ends with this statement, there is not even one, uch Emi, again, he said this one, two, three, four, five times already, uch Emi, there is none, there is none, there is none, to make the point that it is written that all are under sin. The overarching idea is that there is none who is righteous, there's not even one. And it's not just to say that none is righteous doesn't mean that they're 94% of the way there. They're just 6% short of being righteous. No, there is no righteousness to be found anywhere in verses 11 and 12. All have turned aside. Together they have become useless. This is the totality of corruption. Then, that's the declaration. He's declared all to be totally corrupt. I feel like I'm missing a note. There's something in here I really wanted to land on, and I don't see it. So maybe it's coming. In verses 13 to 18, we see a description of corruption. Okay, so you've made the statement. Well, how do we know? It's just that Paul says this, you know? And you know, maybe the psalmist in Psalm 14 was having a really bad day, and he's kind of upset, and he was having the blues, and he just was thinking real negative. You know how we get. Yeah? I don't know how we get. But the Psalmist wasn't just having a bad day and Paul wasn't just throwing this accusation out. Paul's about to bring the proof, undeniable proof. Now, as we go through this list, I know what you're gonna wanna do. You're gonna wanna start thinking about other people that fit this list. And I'll tell you who you're gonna think about. Hopefully not your spouse. You're gonna think about politicians when I go through this list. You're gonna think about people on social media with really big mouths that say outlandish, outrageous, crazy stuff. You're gonna think about people that you see saying some of the most outrageous, absurd things, even on supposed Christian radio and television. And I want you to hold back from that. I want you to look in the mirror. Because although it's true that every politician that goes on television is going to fit some of these, and it's true that we see the worst of humanity coming out on the internet everywhere. That's true. In order for this to be a benefit to you, you need to see you here. Now you need to either see yourself here as one who is in need of what this Savior can do, or you see yourself here as one who has received what this Savior did for you, even though you... It's not just that you don't deserve what He did for you, you deserve the exact opposite. you deserve the exact opposite as wonderful and as tremendously unspeakable are going to be the blessings of heaven every blessing in the spiritual places in the heavenlies every spiritual blessing we can't even begin to enumerate them as glorious as that is on the other end of that scale that is how dark and wretched and horrific the hell is going to be and that is what you deserve Heaven is what you get if you come to Christ. So when you see yourself here, I don't mean necessarily to cast you into some depression. I want you to see the glory of the Savior that would save one like this, because that's what he did if he saved you. Let's look at the description of corruption. Verse 13, it starts with the mouth. He's gonna use some anthropomorphic language here. He's talking about the mouth and the feet and the lips and the tongue. It starts with the mouth. You remember in Matthew 15 where the Pharisees came to Jesus and said, hey, why don't you and the boys wash your hands before you eat, man? That's really not what they asked. They said, why do you not keep the tradition of the elders? Why do you not keep, why do you not do this stuff? Jesus said, why do you take the Word of God and use it for your own end and deny the Word, what the Word actually expects from you? You take the Word of God and the Word of God and pit it against one another to get what you want. And he says, it's not what goes in the mouth that defiles, it is what comes out of the mouth that defiles a man. So Paul starts here, verse 13. Their throat is an open tomb. You know why we have tombs? You know why we have those things? Because you don't want to see a decaying body. You don't want to be anywhere around it. You understand that a grave is a vile thing. It's a vile place. We bury them six feet underground to get them into a place where the natural finishing of the corruption of their body can take place out of sight, out of mind, out of focus, out of our ability to sense it. We cover graves for a reason. We cover tombs for a reason. I told the Sunday school class, I was gonna quote my favorite King James, William Tyndale Bible verse this morning. It's from John 11. Jesus said, roll the stone away. Remember what Martha said? The Lord has been four days, by now he stinketh. That's why it's my favorite. That's the only time you ever hear that word. Why not roll the stone away? Because by now you don't want to be the atrocity of what is going to come out of that and the visions and the smells and the irreparable damage to your memory. You don't want to be around that. Paul says that the first characteristic the first description of the corruption of man is that their throat is an open grave you don't want to see a grave you don't want to deal with what's in there the grave reveals what we don't want to face because that's where we're all going to be one day if the Lord continues to tarry And I'll tell you what else you don't want to face. You don't want to face what comes out of your mouth. And I talk more than most anybody else in this room. It's a tough thing to have a big mouth. I don't know if those were chuckles or groans. I'm going to assume those were groans. The throat is an open grave. What's in that? What's in that? in the mouth. What's attached to that throat that's going to help create this verbiage and this expression of what's on the inside? What comes out of the mouth is what defiles a man. What comes out of the heart comes out of the mouth. It comes through the throat and over the tongue. And it says that with their tongues they keep deceiving. They deceive. They use deceit. It's in the imperfect active, it means that it's ongoing, it is continual, it happens all of the time. You know why you can't trust anybody and trust what people tell you anymore? You know why? Because of total depravity. R.C. Sproul said, do you want to live a separatistic life? You want to be a separatist? Then be someone whose word can be trusted. Because we live in a day and age where lying is par for the course. People don't expect you to tell the truth. They're astonished when you do. When you do what you tell people you're going to do, they don't even know how to act anymore because nobody does that. Nobody expects anyone to keep their word anymore. Because we live in an age, we live in a world full of people who have a throat like an open grave with tongues that keep deceiving. And he's not done. The poison of asps is under their lips. Now the asp was a small snake, but it was, many say it was the most venomous snake in Asia Minor, in the Middle East. It's a small snake, but a poisonous snake. The asp, the poison of an asp is so powerful that the bite One bite from an asp snake is fatal unless the bitten part is cut off and thrown away. Oh, you're bitten by an asp? Okay, come here, we're gonna suck the poison out. No, no, we're gonna cut the arm off. Oh, we're gonna cut the leg off. Oh, it bit you in the torso? We'll cut the chunk of meat out, but there's no guarantee. This is where the Holy Spirit goes to describe what is coming out of the mouth of people and what is there, and it speaks of the fangs of a viper hidden behind the smile, saying one thing and meaning another. It comes out in people that have a sharp tongue. It comes out in people who are gossips. Learn some information from here, pass it on over here to denigrate them and elevate me. Rumor mongers. How about braggarts? To elevate self and in so doing denigrate others. I've got this right, I'm doing this right, I've got this, this and this. You should be impressed. And you should try to be like me. It's a mouth that tears others down all of the time. The poison of asps is under their lips. They have the fangs of a viper. Verse 14, he's not done. The throat, the tongue, and the lips all create this body part that is able to speak. And what's going to come out of someone's mouth that is attached to a throat like an open tomb and a tongue that continues to deceive and continues to deceive and is hiding the poison of asps under its lips? That mouth, he says in verse 14, is full of cursing and bitterness. It's filled with cursing and bitterness. The idea of cursing is not using four-letter words. The idea of cursing is just that, to curse someone, imprecations, malediction. You know what malediction is? It's saying something bad about another person. You know where this comes out in your life? When you drive down the road. And some imbecilic, self-centered person who is paying no attention to anything outside of the four windows of their car is doing this. Ask me how I know. Not how I know about that happening. Ask me how I know that a mouth is full of imprecation and malediction. The idea of caustic, derisive language doesn't have to be It doesn't have to be immoral language. It doesn't have to be like some of these preachers today that are cussing in the pulpit. It's not that kind of language necessarily. It would certainly include that, but it's a far broader idea than that. Mouth is filled with cursing and bitterness. It's translated some places bitter gall. It means extreme wickedness. A mouth filled with cursing bitterness This bitterness would be the open public expression of emotional hostility against one's enemy Let me take a little guess that comes out in your life more with your spouse than anybody else We don't need to look to a politician we need only look in the mirror Moves from the mouth to the feet And you need to understand what's being conveyed here. From the top of your head, your understanding, your mental capacity, your ability to understand the things of God, from the top of your head to the bottom of your feet, you are a natural-born corrupt being. from the head to the mouth all the way to the feet. Verse 15, their feet are swift to shed blood. You know what that means? That they run after sin. Your flesh as a believer runs after sin. Before you were a believer, you just had to have a suggestion. Hey, let's go sin. Hey, yeah, let's go do that. Well, you know, we better not because I don't have the money. I can't afford it. But as soon as I can afford it, we'll do it. Part of the reason you didn't participate in certain sins when you were an unbeliever is because you couldn't afford it financially. But you would have if you could. Feet are swift to shed blood. And he's speaking in the broadest term possible. The shedding of blood would be maybe the worst sin that could be committed. If you're going to become a sinner, a murderer is about the worst thing that you can become. They're swift to go to the nth degree to sin. They're swift to run after sin, whatever it is. They're not reluctant to sin, they run after it. Verse 16, destruction and misery are in their paths. Yeah, destruction and misery fill their path. Their feet are swift to shed blood and all they do is cut down everyone around them and build themselves up. The poison of asps under their lips. The open tomb of a throat and a continually deceiving tongue. You better believe destruction and misery is all that's gonna await them. Their destruction and the destruction and misery of all those that are around them. Why is the world so hard to live in? It's because of total depravity. Destruction and misery are in the paths of people whose feet are swift to run to sin. They're done talking about it. They want to go and do it. Verse 17, the other side of the coin, destruction and misery are in their path, and the path of peace they have not known. Well friends, this is a no-brainer. How could they possibly know peace in their life if this is the characteristic of their life? Their moral integrity is non-existent. There can be no peace. They'll never know peace. But you know what you do instead? You do it just like Adam and Eve did. They did this to me. You're the problem. I get this a lot, that preacher's been preaching at me. I ain't thinking about you fool, get over it. I'm not wasting my time up here worried about you. Worried about this. And I'm telling you, this is a wrecking ball that hits everybody in this room the same. And your sin is not someone else's fault. Verse 18. Verse 10, there is none righteous, not even one. That is the bookend on this end. You've got no ability to understand, no ability to seek God. You don't attempt to try to follow His way. You've become worthless to Him because you won't do what He says. You will not do good. Your throat is an open tomb. Your tongue is in perpetual deceit mode. The poison of Asp is under your lips. Your mouth is full of cursing and bitterness. Feet are swift to run to sin. Destruction and misery is all that you've ever known in this life and all you will know on your own. The path of peace you will not know. And then the other bookend comes and just rounds it all off. He begins by saying there is none righteous and then he gives the evidence and he ends by saying that there is no fear of God before their eyes and that explains why all of this is a reality in their life. Why would you ever want to not sin? Why would you ever be concerned about the gospel? Because there is a fear of God before your eyes. And he says here that mankind as a whole, every man, woman, and child breathing air today, every mother's child that has ever come out of a hospital anywhere is described here, and it says there is no fear of God before their eyes. From the top of their head to the bottom of their feet, nothing in their sight, nothing in their plans ahead of them include any acknowledgement of the true God. Oh, they may have some religion. We saw that last week. But man-made religion is over against the true religion of Jesus Christ or not even similar because man-made religion is looking for a concocted, controllable God. There's no fear of the true God. There's no fear of Elohim. There's no fear of Yahweh. The best that they can do with the idea of Yahweh is either Santa Claus or Allah. Santa Claus just gives you everything. And Allah gives you nothing. He's just to be feared. No respect, just fear. This is the best that man can concoct. And somewhere in the middle there is the dung beetle. I don't even know how that works. Oh, he'll let you live. You'll just have to come back and live as the most disgusting creature on the face of the planet. But friends, that's still better than hell. That's still better than the unfettered wrath of God. And no fear of God before their eyes. This is where man starts. And this is where man left to himself ends. This is where man abides. This is where he stays. How does a man come out of that? How does a man overcome this? A man doesn't. But because I want the good news to be good news, I've painted the bad news here today and I'm not leaving you there. In the next weeks, we're going to really open up how and why man is able to overcome this. Actually, man is not able to overcome this. How and why this is overcome by God, for God, through God. applied to man but first verse 19 sums all of this up in case all of the new Amy and there is not even one I didn't write down what that is but it rhymes okay me even one it I'm not gonna try to remember but but it's it's just he's putting it out so that it stays in your mind you can't forget it The description of corruption is followed in verse 19 by the devastation of corruption. Just in case you think that that's a description of someone else, this leaves no place for you to run, to hide from what this actually has to say about your sin, about you as the sinner. Now, we know. That's not an ambiguous expression. We know. We know that whatever the law says, it doesn't say that what we like in the scripture or what we think about the scripture, we know that whatever the law says, It speaks to those who are in the law. This is similar language to what he said back in verse 9, that all are under sin. We are under the law. We are in the law. There is no escape from it. The law has surrounded us. There's no way out. It is collapsing in upon us. And there is a grip that is placed upon us by the law of God that is inescapable. And it will have its satisfaction. the wrath of god will be satisfied when the law of god has been broken it will be a it is inescapable we know that whatever it says it speaks to those all of those who are under the law who are in the law so that every mouth may be shot and all the world may become accountable to god see this is where you you run out of reason to blame the preacher for saying things that you don't like or anybody else it is just Well, you really didn't have to go there. Yeah, you do. You have to. You have to go to this link to understand there is no special case. This is not talking about a different group of people than the one that you came from. This is you. And when you come to understand that this is you and you realize that there is no excuse and that there's coming a day where I will stand before God and my sin will be paid for. It will be addressed. It's not that God says, well, you know, if you believe in my son, I'll just, I'll just get rid of, I'll just ignore your sin. No, he can't do that. Verse 26 says that he is just and the justifier. He can't just justify and not deal with sin. That would be unjust. That would be illegal. Sin has to be dealt with. That's why there was a cross. Sin must be paid for. And it will be, either in the infinitely sufficient payment of the infinite Son of God on the cross of Calvary. Friends, if you really want to think about the glory of Jesus, think about what sort of being He must be that in three hours He was able to pay for your sin, much less that He paid for the sin of all of God's What a being must he be? He can't be Santa Claus. We are right to call him Savior. He's the Savior that we need because of the devastation of the corruption that is the characteristic of who we are. I told you I'm not going to leave you there. We've looked at the declaration of corruption, the description of corruption, the devastation of corruption in verse 19. But friends, that's not where Paul ends. In verses 21 to 26, we see the redemption of justification. I know justification is a really big Bible word. Friends, you need to know what it means. Justification is an act of God where He declares Told you he declares the end from the beginning because he is in control and he moves as he chooses and he is moving toward his goal. Friends, justification is that God declares the radically corrupt, totally depraved sinner to be as righteous as Jesus Christ himself. That is what justification means. And the idea of redemption is having a price paid to rescue you from slavery. That redemption price was paid with the blood of Christ on the mercy seat in heaven. The infinitely valuable blood of the spotless Lamb of God was poured out on that mercy seat. And for those that come to God in Jesus Christ, there is therefore now no condemnation for them. Paul has laid this out. Throat of an open tomb, deceptive tongue, poisoned lips, cursing bitter mouths, feet that run to sin and create destruction and misery at every step. having forsaken the path of peace, no fear of God, no concern for God before their eyes, and everyone stands condemned before him. And then you come to that all-important three-letter word at the beginning of verse 21, but, but, you say, there's no hope there, preacher, you're right, not from your part and mine, but, now, apart from the law, you begin to realize that the law speaks to everyone described here, the law of God says that you are accountable to God and you can just quit with your excuses and be silent. Like people say, when I stand before God, I'm gonna tell him what I think. No, you're not. You're not even gonna breathe. Every mouth will be shut. as you stand accountable before God, and as He casts you into hell, all of creation will give a standing ovation to the glory and justice of God, as He judges you for the sinner that you chose to remain be. But, but, now, right now, it was now, then it's now, now, it's gonna be now from now on, But now, apart from the law of God, the righteousness of God has been manifested. Paul said, I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew primarily and also to the Greek. For in it, in the gospel, the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith. As it is written, the righteous shall live by faith. But now, apart from the law, the righteousness of God has been manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets. That means that it's not new. It's the Old Testament. God prescribed it. God proclaimed it. He declared it. And when Christ came, friends, He brought it into being. This righteousness, verse 22, it's the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. for there is no distinction for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God being all being justified as a gift by his grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus so so what is the good news preacher the good news is that God has set forward His righteousness as being available to you if you will put your faith and trust in Jesus Christ for all who believe. This goes back to the beginning of the chapter where he's making the connection that all, both Jews and Greeks, are under sin. All manner of men, all distinctions of men, all groups of men, There is no one who is left out in having this opportunity to be saved. No one is too bad to be saved. No one is too far gone to receive the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ. Because all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. It's not an issue of how much worse I am than you are, how much worse you are than they are. All have fallen short of the glory of God. And by implication, verse 24, all that are justified are being justified as a gift. You know what that means? It means you can't earn it. It has to be given. It's a gift. It's provided by another. God provides it. God comes to you with the gospel and says, if you will trust in what my son has accomplished, I will give you the gift of righteousness, and you will stand before me in righteousness for the rest of eternity, because I am the one that gave it, and no one can take it. But yeah, but what I mean really what did Jesus do he died on a cross. Mm-hmm. He did why? First 25 The redemption which is in Christ Jesus this payment this this redeeming us buying us back buying us for God Being purchased by him for him through him because Christ is the payment, verse 25, Christ Jesus, whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation. Another big Bible word. You can imagine William Tyndale looking at night in the printer's shop, looking at the original language and saying, how do I convey this reality in a word? I know, propitiation. That cleared it right up, didn't it? Justification, big Bible word, big meaning, you need to know it. Propitiation is the same. Propitiation means a wrath-satisfying sacrifice. A wrath-satisfying sacrifice. God accepted the sacrifice of Christ on the cross of Calvary Back in chapter 5, it says he was raised for our justification. When God raised Christ from the dead, he said, I accept the sacrifice. And now there is justification because the propitiation has been paid. The penalty has been paid. Wrath has been satisfied. There is therefore now no condemnation for those that are in Christ because Jesus paid it all. He drank the cup of God's wrath. Remember in the garden, Judas is coming with the betrayal forces, with the arresting forces in his betraying act. Jesus says, let us go from the upper room, and they go to a garden. He says, you eight fellas stay here, but I need Pete and Jimmy and Johnny with me. And he went a few feet away from them in the moonlight. Peter and John and James could see that he was sweating drops of blood, and he was praying. He said, oh, Father, if there's any way that this cup can pass from me, Nevertheless, your will be done. He must have said it over and over and over. You ask yourself, what was in that cup? What is this proverbial cup? What is the cup that he drank on the cross? Jesus Christ, the Savior on the cross of Calvary, took the cup of the wrath and indignation of God, and drank every drop dry, and took the full wrath of God upon himself, the wrath of God that a Romans 3 person deserves for eternity, and he took it all. And God was satisfied in it, and there has now been Satisfaction made for the sins of all of those that will come to God through faith in Jesus Christ. For all who believe. Because Christ is the perpetuatory sacrifice. He is the Lamb of God that has taken away the sin of the world. No distinction in people groups. People from every tribe and tongue and nation. Friends, He's a Savior like no other. He didn't save a special few. He didn't save a distinct few. He came to save all who would believe. And He saves all who will believe to the utmost. Why did He do that? Why did He portray Christ publicly as a propitiation in His blood through faith? You say, well, Well, yeah, he was crucified, but I don't think that that really paid for my sin. Well, then you can take the faith out of here, because it only becomes a propitiation for your sin when you put your faith in him. And he did it, middle of verse 25, for a demonstration of his righteousness. Because in the forbearance of God, he passed over the sins previously committed. There were sacrifices made throughout the Levitical system, throughout the time from Moses until Jesus, and all of those sacrifices were pointing forward to what Christ would do. And He brought the final sacrifice that they all pointed forward to, and we now live on this side of the cross and we look back at that one act and put our faith and trust in that act that God has described as the propitiation to satisfy His wrath. And he put Christ forward so that the world would know that this is the sacrifice that all of the rest of them were pointing to, and the reason that they were ever valid is because of the sacrifice that Christ made on the cross to demonstrate the righteousness of God, because he had, in his forbearance, he passed over previous sins committed, and for the demonstration of his righteousness at the present time. so that he would be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. God can be just in declaring righteous those that put their faith in Jesus because of what Jesus accomplished on the cross. And it was sufficient to save the likes of you and I. It was sufficient to save the likes of the one described in Romans chapter three. It is sufficient. It is sufficient. He is sufficient. The question is, is he your Lord? Have you come to him on his terms? Have you come to him in repentance and faith, repenting of who you know that you've been and repenting of what you've treated him like? And now you're gonna cease following your way and you're gonna follow him as the Lord of glory and put your faith and trust in what he has declared will satisfy the wrath of God for you from forever, starting right now. If you will do that, he will save you. If you have done that, he has saved you. And if you have not, you are not a believer. No matter what else you believe, You can believe in believing, but you must put your faith in the finished work of Christ on the cross, understanding that that is what it took to save you. You needed every drop of blood that he shed. If you'll trust him for that, friends, he will save you. Stand, we're gonna pray. Heavenly Father, I pray that you will bless your people for being here today. You will take the truths of this gospel, Lord, and encourage the faint-hearted, or that you might admonish the unbelieving and bring salvation to an unrepentant heart today as they see just what it is they are casting aside as they shun righteousness. I pray that the Savior has been portrayed in the glory that he is due to the best of my meager ability. I pray that he will receive the reward that he is due. Bless your people as they go this day. I pray it in Jesus' name. Amen.