Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you for this day to come and worship you. And Lord, I ask that you would help us to be still and know that you are Lord. For Lord, you have clothed yourself in beauty and splendor and majesty. And your mercy is for those who fear you from generation to generation. And Lord, what a glorious thought to think that all the saints in heaven from generation to generation that are in heaven adoring you right at this moment and worshiping before your throne. And so Lord, we are gathered today to bring honor to your name and to your word, because every word of God proves true. And we ask that you would prove it true to our hearts today. And Holy Spirit, please open my lips that my mouth may proclaim your praise. Pray this for the glory of Jesus Christ, amen. You may be seated. I have done a number of transitions during the Lord's Table service, but now you have to listen to me for 40 minutes. Well, it's not my voice I want you to hear. We want to hear from God and His Word, and our aim is to do just that as we open the Scriptures and as the Holy Spirit enables us. So if you're not already there, please take a copy of God's Word and turn to Romans chapter 3. And it is going to be helpful for us this morning to remember and to be reminded that the Apostles, including the Apostle Paul, had been going around and preaching that the Christ is Jesus, the one who would save his people from their sins. And Paul was told directly by Jesus in Acts 26 that he would send him to both the Jews and the Gentiles so that it may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in Jesus Christ." And so, thankfully, Paul went. And he declared throughout Jerusalem and throughout Judea and to the Gentiles that they should repent and turn to God. And we're thankful that Paul indeed do that. And we are entering today into Paul's climatic summation of our guilt before God. And by the Holy Spirit, he is gonna lay us bare in our guilt and sinfulness. But may we ever be mindful Romans and the rest of the Gospels are about the riches of grace found in Jesus Christ. So we'll look at some of those today, too. Let me give you a quick roadmap of where we're heading today. In the first eight verses, Paul is going to pose some questions or objections that he may face or that he has faced in the past as he preaches the gospel of grace. and not of works. And then we will handle verses nine through 20, where Paul strings together some Old Testament passages to show us our guilt before God. And then I will close with some words of hope and care, as this is a difficult portion of scripture, and I don't wanna leave us here because God does desire to fill us with all hope and joy in believing. So, Romans three, verse one to three. Then what advantage has the Jew? Or what is the value of circumcision? Much in every way, to begin with, the Jews were entrusted with the oracles of God. What if some were unfaithful? Does their faithlessness nullify the faithfulness of God? The apostle Paul ended chapter two stating that mere outward religious acts are worthless. and that there must be a circumcision of the heart by the Spirit of God that transforms us to be committed to God in obedience to him. And many of the Jews were unfaithful to this call to have a transformed life. In fact, they seemed to go in the opposite direction. They had the oracles of God that could make them wise to salvation, but they took those promises of God instead puff themselves up in pride as God's chosen people and to be ungrateful to God. They have a history, as we know, of manufacturing laws and beliefs about God that are beyond God's written word. And it became a way for them, really, to create a God of their own liking, a God that they could control. And in our society today, we see this played out a bit differently, but it has the same effect. Man will take some truths about God from the Bible to fit his lifestyle and pick and choose what he wants to believe about God, and in a way, molding a God to fit what they think God should be about. And the effect is the same. Human pride and human ingratitude and negligence with God's word will keep people from seeing God as true and just. And if you never see God as true and just, you'll never see your need for salvation. And you'll never see Jesus as the Savior. You may hear and may know that Jesus is the Savior just by mere repetition, but you'll never see the Savior or believe in him as God's anointed one to take away the sins of the world. or to take away your sins. And all this ingratitude and human pride, it is echoing back to chapter one. For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him. So will human pride and ingratitude nullify the faithfulness of God and the truth of his word? Will human pride change God's written word so that God could somehow be made subservient to man's unfaithfulness. No, by no means. But human pride will keep us from seeing the power of God for salvation. Human pride and unfaithfulness will not change who God is and it can never, ever change God's infallible word. But human pride will keep us from receiving and understanding God's revelation. And this human pride that I'm speaking about is not so much the chest-beating, boastfulness human pride, but it is a human pride in ourselves to be self-reliant and self-justified, even a prideful comfort that we do not need God. And so Paul, He emphatically denounces such a thought. Does man's unfaithfulness nullify God's faithfulness? No, by no means. In verse four, let God be true, though everyone were a liar, as it is written, that you may prevail, that you may be justified in your words and prevail when you are judged. And here we are to let God be found true. Point number one in your bulletin outline. You let God be found true. So how do we let God be found true? How do we put away human pride so that we will see God as true? If we do not submit to God as the sovereign and righteous judge of the living and dead, we will be left as liars. left as someone who lives before God as deceived and lost. Well, we see how to let God be found true in the confession of King David, because here Paul is quoting King David from his great confession of his sin against God in Psalm 51. But how does David get to this confession that God is justified in his words and prevail when he is judged? You will recall that it came upon a day when King David saw a beautiful woman bathing, who was married to an honorable man. And David had Bathsheba called to his chamber to commit adultery with her. And then he had her husband killed to hide his gross immorality. Well, in time, God sent Nathan the prophet to David to show him his sin, and God lays the charge upon David. And this is from 2 Samuel. I want you to listen to these charges that David, I'm sorry, that God brought upon David. David has despised the word of the Lord. He has done evil in God's sight. He has struck down Uriah and took his wife to be his own wife. David has despised God himself and he has scorned the Lord. That means he made a mockery of God's goodness to him. David is guilty before God. And David He does not question God's indictment. He doesn't reason to himself that he is above God's judgment. This, after all, is the mighty King of Israel. He is highly esteemed by the people, and he is beloved by the people, and he is a mighty warrior with multiple victories on the battlefield, a man of great power. and he humbles himself before God. And, I think this is important for understanding our text this morning, David does not try to earn God's favor and forgiveness by some self-righteous work. David makes that great confession that he has sinned against the Lord. And in that confession, David takes his stand with God against himself. David takes his stand with God against himself. And in that confession of Psalm 51, David puts himself in the arms of God's mercy. Let me just read the first four verses of that Psalm, Psalm 51. This is a Psalm of David when Nathan the prophet went to him. Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love. According to your abundant mercy, blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin, for I know my transgressions and my sin is ever before me. Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight. so that you may be justified in your words and blameless in your judgment. What David did was he confessed to be in the wrong and God in the right so that he might gain God's cause of being merciful to him. A couple of Old Testament Hebrew scholars from the 1800s wrote an extensive commentary on the Old Testament And they wrote this about this passage. They say this, when sin becomes manifest to a man, he must himself say amen to the divine sentence, just as David did. And it is just the nature of penitence or repentance. So to confess oneself to be in the wrong, in order that God may be in the right, and that we may gain God's cause. Confessing that God is in the right, that he is righteous, that he is true, and that we are in the wrong and repent before God is how we let God be found true. And this confession puts us in the care of God's abundant mercy. And you'll remember well the parable of Jesus in Luke 18, the Pharisee and the tax collector. The tax collector would not even lift his eyes to heaven, but he beat his chest. Lord, be merciful to me, a sinner. And meanwhile, the Pharisee was off to the side, extolling himself before God and recounting all his great works before God. And who went home justified that day? the tax collector because he pleaded with God for his mercy and he put himself in the arms of God's mercy. This is how we let God be found true to us, confessing him to be in the right when we are in the wrong and repenting of our sins and running to God for his mercy. And what about us this morning? What God has done in David's life, he has done in our life. Would you say this is true in your own conversion and your walk with Christ? He shows us our sin, and in that conviction by the Holy Spirit, he can fix us and proves to us that God is a saving and merciful and gracious God. And we'll praise be to God for his abundant mercies in cleansing us from our sins. as we move on I see Paul here in chapter 3 is, he's doing everything he can by the power of the Holy Spirit. He's working hard to destroy false beliefs and false arguments so that we might come to know the truth. And he continues in the verses 5 through 8 where the wisdom of God is to be trusted and not the foolishness of corrupted ignorant reasoning which keeps people in self-deception and to remain under the just condemnation of God." As I read verses 5 to 8, I think it will become pretty clear to you that this foolish reasoning is actually accusing God, even accusing God of being unrighteous. Let me read these verses for us, beginning in verse 5. But if our unrighteousness serves to show the righteousness of God, what shall we say? That God is unrighteous to inflict wrath on us? I speak in a human way. By no means, for then how could God judge the world? But if through my lie God's truth abounds to his glory, why am I still being condemned as a sinner? And why not do evil that good may come, as some people slanderously charge us with saying, their condemnation is just. There's a word for this type of reasoning. It's called sophistry. It's spinning the truth. Its purpose is to deceive and to make lies the truth. And these aren't strong enough words. These are actual lies and liars. Paul, he wants us to know that he wants to be so far removed from this way of thinking that he lets us know in verse five that he is speaking in a human way. Paul is assuming the character of the ungodly to even think to reason this way. We see this spinning of the truth every day in our media-driven political world, and it is exhausting. After years of telling thousands of lies and deceiving his sport and deceiving his fans, deceiving the authorities and those who had won before him, Lance Armstrong could no longer bear the public pressure that demanded he tell the truth. He had been using many different banned substances to speed his recovery and boost his physical capabilities in the very demanding sport of professional cycling. And when people he used to love and enjoy testified under oath that they saw him use these banned substances, He sued them to defame them, even to attack them personally so that he might win his heart's desire to not be found out. His lying did not bother him. It became natural to him to lie by his own admission so that he would not be found out. Well, we need to be found out in our sins so that we will run to God. And these objectors in verse five to eight do not want to see themselves as sinners. They don't want to be found out as sinners, and they will spin themselves out of guilt by making God out to be unrighteous, or even making God's righteousness and even his grace malleable to their demands. It's a damning deception. Donald Barnhouse, former pastor in Philadelphia, whom Lars has quoted and maybe some of you others have quoted, writes this on this passage. Oh, the audacity of the human heart, which flinches not from attacking what it cannot comprehend. The mind finds itself in ignorance and wishing to be exalted in its own eyes, unwilling to cast itself on God as bankrupt, boldly proclaims that error is truth. Well, in these first eight verses, Paul is cutting a dividing line between God and man. God is faithful, man is unfaithful. True, liars. Righteous, unrighteous. But on both sides of this dividing line stands the sinner. And there's the sinner that takes his stand with God against himself. And he casts himself to the arms of God's mercy in the repentance of his sins, leading to salvation. And on the other side of the dividing line stands the sinner who refuses God, is self-justified in his sins, and even accuses God of not being righteous, and stands and remains under condemnation. Serious stuff, isn't it? Well, I need to tell you guys, that I am very thankful for the church. I've grown up in the church and I'm very thankful for Orchard Bible Church because by the faithfulness of the leadership here and the faithfulness of you faithful followers of Jesus Christ, that this is a place of protection for us. It's a protection against the deceitfulness of our society against the deceitfulness of our own sinful hearts. It is God's shield about us, because the established truth of God's Word is our rule and our guide here. And I don't know if you guys sense this, but I've been sensing from the elders that they've been preaching through Romans that they are held fast to the Word of God. And as they faithfully teach the oracles of God, they are keeping us held fast to the word of God. And I'm in great delight and joy of that and so thankful for that. And if you are recently returning to the church, or maybe you're new to the church and feeling things out, please come, keep coming, and stay. This is a good church that proclaims the word of God and exalts Jesus Christ. And this room, I love it, this room is filled with faithful and caring believers. This is a good place to be. It is God's protection and shield about us. And I'll ask one thing of us, that we may pray for the elders. and pray for one another that God would continue to give us increased understanding and insight into his word. Psalm 119, your testimonies are righteous forever. Give me understanding that I may live. So may we be in prayer for one another for those things. Well, Paul and the Holy Spirit have not gotten us just yet to where we need to be. And I know we can hardly wait. We're eager to get there. We want to get to verse 21 because there is an explosion of the great news of the gospel there and of the righteousness of Jesus Christ. And Lars will take us there next week. But hang tight. We're going to get there. But we have a little bit more treading to do and some deep treading at that as we enter into verses 9 through 20. And I will close this word with some words of hope and care. But for now, we have to tread deeper into Paul's indictment. So this is point number three in our outline. I think I skipped number two on you. This is point number three, God's indictment of our utter guilt. God's indictment of our utter guilt. In October of 2017, Jason Aldean, a country music singer, was performing at an outdoor music festival in Las Vegas, Nevada. At just after 10 p.m., from the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay Hotel, A lone gunman opened fire on the concertgoers. Sixty people were killed and hundreds others were injured. Monstrous evil. A horrific tragedy carried out by a wicked man. Those are the sins of the gunman. But what about our sins? This is an extreme example, I know. But we see so much violence and wickedness in this world that we can become programmed and deceived to think that our sins aren't so bad and that we are basically good. A comfortable feeling can come over us to see the sins of others and not of ourselves. J.I. Packer, in his excellent book, Knowing God, says, People have ceased to recognize the reality of their own sinfulness, which imparts a degree of perversity and enmity against God to all that they think and do. We are nearing the end of what started in the middle of chapter one, and as we enter verses nine through 20, Paul now takes out the sword of the Old Testament scriptures that pierces to discern the thoughts and intentions of the heart. and to bring God's indictment upon us. Verse nine. What then? Are we Jews any better off? And the we here is everyone who reads this letter. And Paul puts himself here with us. No, not at all. For we have already charged that all, both Jews and Greeks, are under sin. And the we has moved to the all. All people are under sin. And as I read through this comprehensive list of our guilt and depravity in verses 10 through 18, I want you to notice two things that have changed in the way Paul has been writing. There is no longer any back and forth questioning. There's no reasoning out of this. And secondly, there's no defense. This is God alone speaking. It is God's testimony of himself towards us. And this comprehensive list of our guilt will cover the character of man, his ignorant carnal mind, his moral habits, his cruel speech, and his actions and conduct. And these strung together passages are the charges of God against us and who we are in our nature, in the very core of who we are in our nature. But before I go on any further, I have to make a distinction here. Because for the true believer in Jesus Christ, this is what we have been redeemed from. We've been washed and we've been cleansed of our sins in Adam. We are now with Christ in a new nature. And praise be to God for his cleansing mercies. For the unbeliever, this is your guilt. But there is great hope for you. There is great hope for you this very hour. And I'll close this message with the mercies of God in Jesus Christ. Let me read starting in verse 10. As it is written, none is righteous, no, not one. No one understands, no one seeks for God. All have turned aside, together they have become worthless. That's a tough one. That's a real tough one for us and for me to think of us as worthless. Reminds me of Barnhouse's quote, the bankruptcy we have before God. No one does good, not even one. Their throat is an open grave. They use their tongues to deceive. The venom of asps is under their lips. Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed blood. In their paths are ruin and misery, and the way of peace they have not known. There is no fear of God before their eyes." Well, How do you feel? I think it was when I was in about the sixth or seventh grade, my mother started being drawn to the Reformed faith. And along with my dad and brothers, we started attending a small church in Pontiac, Michigan, that met in an auxiliary building of a motorcycle dealership. And our pastor, Bill Tipton, would give one hour long sermons, not just the service, both Sunday morning and Sunday night. And he would preach on Christ our hope, Christ our peace, and Christ our righteousness, and on the doctrines of grace. And ever since attending that church, I have sat under many sermons which we term total depravity. that man is incapable of doing anything to garner favor with God, that man cannot please God. And Paul's gonna get to that later in Romans, that man in his sinfulness cannot, is not even capable, cannot please God. And this text that I just read is the go-to text for sermons on man's inability and total depravity. In total depravity doesn't mean that man can do no good. Man certainly does a lot of good to one another. But man is incapable of doing any good before God apart from Jesus Christ because God is a holy God. And I'll tell you, I am thankful. I am thankful for these convicting and very serious sermons because for me, they brought me to see my sinfulness before God. I took seriously what my pastors said about sin and salvation as they faithfully preached the word of God. And this drove me to see my utter need to come to Christ alone for the forgiveness of my sins. Well, we're getting close. We're near the end of what started in the middle of chapter one, where Paul has been threading a needle of man suppressing the truth about God by their unrighteousness, man does not give honor to God, man is a self-seeker, and man relies on the law, which means man does not rely on God. And here Paul is now at his climatic summation of man's guilt before God, and God sitting on his throne of judgment. Point number four in your outline, at the brink. Verse 19 and 20. Now we know that whatever the law says, it speaks to those who are under the law. And here now, everyone is under the law, whether it is the written law of God or the law of God written on our hearts. Everyone is under the law. So that every mouth may be stopped and the whole world held accountable to God. For by the works of the law, no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes the knowledge of sin. Well, Paul has brought us to the brink. We're cornered. There's nowhere to go. Our doom seems certain. But oh, no. In comes our Rescuer, and here enters God for us. And in His abundant mercy, He has sent His Son who loves us and gave himself for us. Remember how King David took his stand with God against himself? Here Christ takes his stand with us at the brink to rescue us. Christ takes his stand with us before God as our righteousness. In Orchard Bible Church, I want you to receive the assurance of your pardon, of your sin and your guilt. In 1 Corinthians 6, Paul again rattles off some grievous sins, but he gets gloriously to verse 11, and he says, such were some of you, but not any more, for you were washed You were cleansed, you were sanctified, and you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of God. Did you notice that is a Trinitarian work? Justified by God the Father, washed by Jesus the Son, and sanctified by the Holy Spirit. all that God is in three persons. He is all for us. And we are no longer that futile person way back in chapter one, but we are worshipers of God. And we're not that worthless person that I just read about in verse 12, but we are servants of the living God and well-pleasing to Him. So Paul can now gloriously say of us in Philippians that we are now the circumcision who worship God by the Spirit, glory in Jesus Christ, and we put no confidence in the flesh because all of our confidence is in Jesus Christ, our risen, victorious Savior. Psalm 32, one and two. Blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man against whom the Lord counts no iniquity and whose spirit there is no deceit. Orchard, we are blessed people today. All of our iniquity is wiped away by the blood of Jesus Christ. No more deceit. We have the Savior and the Savior has us. We are certainly blessed. If you are here today and have not entrusted your entire being to the person of Jesus Christ, you need to know your guilt. This is not easy for me to say, but I stand on the authority of God's word. You are guilty before God and under his condemnation. But you don't have to hide it. And please don't dismiss it. And you don't have to cover it up. because the fact of sin and guilt has been faced squarely once for all and it has been dealt with by the grace of God. There is hope for you today. Oh, there is such great hope for you this very hour. The old time Puritan Thomas Watson wrote this. God is more inclinable to mercy than wrath. Mercy is his darling attribute, which he most delights in. And hear what God says about himself in Micah. Who is a God like you, pardoning iniquity and passing over the transgression of the remnant of his heritage? He does not retain his anger forever because he delights in mercy. And consider this, that God is so intent on showing mercy to you that he sent his son into this world that hates him and rejected him. and all that vileness that I read about in verse 10 through 18, all that vileness was acted upon Christ's person. God is so intent on showing mercy to you that he sent his son into this world to give up his life at the cross of Calvary for you. Your greatest, most absolute need is to be redeemed by the blood of God's Lamb, His most precious Son. To be pulled out of all that misery of verses 10 to 18, to be delivered from it, to be rescued from it. And your most urgent call must be to call upon the Lord to be saved. But you have to come. You must come to Christ. Indifference is not gonna bring you. And continual unbelief is not gonna bring you. Make today the day you call upon the Lord to be saved. He delights in being merciful to sinners. Let me close with this. There are two very tangible helps for you to this end, to call upon the Lord to be saved. One is the Bible. It is God's revelation of salvation in his son, and it is a most necessary help. And the other is the church, the bride of Christ. In Acts chapter 10 and 11, the apostle Peter was sent out by the church to a man named Cornelius and to his household, and Peter took a message to them, a message by which they would be saved. Jesus is faithful. He will receive all who come with a broken and contrite heart to him in faith. In the blood of Jesus Christ, never ever not today, not ever, loses its power to save. Let's close in prayer. Heavenly Father, we thank you for your abundant mercies in which you so delight to bestow upon us. Holy Spirit, as you convict us, and maybe there's some here today who haven't called upon the Lord to be saved, I ask that you would convict them, and of course, what you do in that conviction is you prove to us and show to us that God is a saving God, that you are a saving God. Lord, glorify your name in the salvation of your people, and we thank you for your most holy and precious word, a message by which we'd be saved. We pray this in Christ's name, amen.