You know what's amazing in all of this? God knows how depraved we are. God's aware of all of our sinful nature and in spite of that, in spite of that, He still loves us. We read in John 3.16, For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life. God loves you. If you have never been saved, it's not automatic. It is a gift. It starts with taking our depravity by the horns and recognizing it and repenting and receiving the grace of God. Have you done that? The Bible says that the gospel of Christ is the power of God unto salvation. Welcome to Pulpit Power featuring Pastor Tony Skeving, Senior Pastor of Fargo Baptist Church in Fargo, North Dakota. Today's message was previously preached before a church audience. And now, here's Pastor Skeving. Let's take our Bibles and turn to the book of Romans in the third chapter. Romans chapter 3. There was a preacher years ago by the name of Dr. Howard. He preached hard on sin. He named sin. And he had some people in his church that were disturbed by this and they went to see him. And they said, Dr. Howard, could you kind of lighten up a little bit? Maybe when you talk of sin, refer to it as a mistake, or confusion, or weakness, or an error. And he said, well, let me ask you something. He pulled from his medicine chest a bottle of strychnine, poison. He said, if I were to take and put a label over this bottle and it said peppermint tea, Would it be any less dangerous?" And they said, well, no, it would still be dangerous. He said, would it be more dangerous? He said, yes, it would actually be more dangerous. And he said, so it is with relabeling sin and watering down sin. It becomes more dangerous when we don't call it what it is. So today we're going to be calling sin what it is. And I'm just going to warn you ahead of time, we're looking at a passage here that deals with sin. And I didn't write it. I'm just the messenger. We're in a study in the book of Romans, and we have come up to a very famous passage here. In Romans chapter 3, we begin reading in verse number 9, Paul, a Jew speaking of non-Jews, he says, Are we better than they? No, in no wise. For we have before proved, both Jews and Gentiles, that they are all under sin. As it is written, there is none righteous, no, not one. There is none that understandeth. There is none that seeketh after God. They are all gone out of the way. They are together become unprofitable. There is none that doeth good, no, not one. Their throat is an open sepulcher. With their tongues they have used deceit. 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 ways, and the way of peace have they not known. There is no fear of God before their eyes. Now, we know that what thingsoever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law, that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God. Therefore, by the deeds of the law, there shall no flesh be justified in His sight, for by the law is the knowledge of sin." Now, you've heard before the expression of taking the bull by the horns. Well, today we need to take depravity by the horns. And we find it right here in this passage, don't we? So let's do that, but let's pray first, shall we? Our Heavenly Father, we ask You, dear Lord, to bless now this time as we look into Your Word. Help us to understand this passage, and more importantly, to make an application to our lives spiritually. For we pray now and ask these things in Jesus' name. Amen. The list we just looked at is not very flattering, is it? But it's really an analysis of human nature. And it's what the Bible teaches. We are sinners. That's what God says. But did you know that's also what studies have found out? In fact, there was a study done, no less across the river in Minnesota back in the early 1900s by the Minnesota Crime Commission. You know what they decided? Here it is, quote, every baby starts life as a little savage. He is completely selfish and self-centered. He wants what he wants when he wants it, his bottle, his mother's attention, his playmates' toys, his uncle's watch or whatever. Deny him these things and he sees with rage and aggressiveness, which would be murderous were he not so helpless. He's dirty. He has no morals, no knowledge, no developed skills. This means that all children, not just certain children, but all children are born delinquent. If permitted to continue in their self-centered world of infancy, given free reign to their impulsive actions to satisfy every want, every child would grow up a criminal, a thief, a killer, a rapist." Minnesota Crime Convention. That's not the Book of Isaiah. That is what a secular board determined. They said this problem is born within, and it is. In fact, we read in Psalm 58.3 that they go astray as soon as they be born, speaking lies. You don't have to teach a child how to lie, do you? You parents, you know that's true. You don't have to teach a child how to be selfish with their toys, how to fight with their playmates, how to be greedy and stingy, or any of those things. You sometimes wonder who taught them those things, but it is born within them. They know all those things. If you've ever seen an apple with a worm in it, you probably figure there's a worm inside of it at the time. But the truth is, the worm has already crawled out of it. You see, the eggs are laid by an insect there in the blossom, and the apple grows around the worm, and the worm has to actually eat its way out of the apple, and that's what puts the hole there. It's within already. And so it is with our sin nature, folks. We're born with it. It is there. It is within already. The text we just read a moment ago, it's not flattering. And people don't like to hear it. And in most churches, you would not hear it. You would not hear it in secular universities or the halls of higher learning. In fact, I beg you this morning, don't walk out before we're done. Hang in there. I think you will be encouraged by the outcome. But this passage here talks about our wretchedness. It really does. It was John Newton who wrote the great hymn, Amazing Grace, How Sweet the Sound, that saved a what? Wretch like me. You're looking at a wretch. By the way, I'm looking at a bunch of wretches right now. I'll guarantee you that. But we are truly wretches, and that's what we see, what I call first of all, in the universal analysis. We are all sinners. We find that as we begin in verse number nine, Paul says, what then? Are we better than they? Speaking of Jews being better than Gentiles, he says, no, and no wise. For we have before proved, both Jew and Gentiles, that they are all under sin, as it is written, there is none righteous, no, not one, there is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God, they are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable, there is none that doeth good, no, not one. Have you noticed some of those terms which Paul is writing there? He says all under sin at the end of verse number nine. He says there's none righteous in verse number 10. No, not one. He says in verse 11, notice the word, none that understandeth. Again, none that seeketh after God. Notice in verse 12, the word all. They are all gone out of the way. Notice that word together. They are together. You put them all together, they're unprofitable. Notice in verse 12, the word none again. And at the end of verse 12, no, not one. He keeps saying all and none and all together. You notice those terms. It spells universal depravity. There are no exceptions. Why do people do the things that they do? in the Bronx some years ago of New York City, somebody one day pulled a fire alarm just for kicks, and on the way to the fire the truck took a sharp corner and one of the firemen went flying off and he was killed in the accident. Suddenly the person who did that, who pulled that alarm, was wanted for manslaughter. Why do people do stuff like that? How many of you have a computer here? How many of you have virus protection for your computer? You should, you better. Now, why do you have to have that? Isn't it dumb that there are people out there and they have nothing better to do but to make these viruses and introduce them and you have to buy this software to keep it from harming your computer and erasing your hard drive? What's wrong with people? Is that how they get their jollies? What's wrong with them? Why is it that people do stuff like that? It's total depravity. I have a preacher friend on the mission field and he had his computer stolen and years of work with it. Now why do people steal? Why don't they go get a job? Why don't they make money and buy things for themselves? Why do they have to do stuff like that? Why is it that kids take guns to school and shoot their playmates? Why was it that back in April of 99, I believe it was, a couple of boys by the name of Eric and Dylan took guns to school down in greater Colorado and killed 12 of their classmates, one teacher, injured 24 others. Why do people do stuff like that? What's the sense in that? Why is it when you open the newspaper you read of rape and war and murder and thievery and all kinds of crime? Why do people do stuff like that? Well, we're sinners. You say, well, Pastor, I don't do stuff like that. It doesn't include me. Well, notice verse 9. Paul says, what then? Are we better than they? No, in no wise. For we have before proved, both Jew and Gentile, that they are all under sin. That's the universal analysis We are all sinners. It doesn't matter. Now, the first reaction when you address a group of people and you point out their sin nature, they say, well, at least I'm not as bad as this other person. And we always have somebody that we can compare ourselves to, don't we? I'm not as bad as so-and-so. Well, in Isaiah 65.5, God says of them, they say, "'Stand by thyself, come not near to me, for I am holier than thou.'" God says, these are smoke in my nose. Self-righteousness makes us think we are not as bad as somebody else. And we get the air and the attitude, hey, don't get too close to me. I'm holier than thou. And God looks down and He says, oh, that is a smoke in my nose. You ever got smoke in your nose and your eyes? That's what God sees and thinks when He sees all that. Verse 9 here says, all are under sin. Plain and simple. In fact, Galatians 3.22 says, but the Scripture hath concluded, all under sin. We are all sinners. In fact, if you put everybody in the same environment with the same circumstances, the same pressure, the same setting, the same parents, We'd be cannibals, basically. We can look down on the aboriginals and say, oh, look at those poor people. But it's called us in nature. You know what Albert Einstein had to say about this? Einstein said the real problem is in the hearts and minds of men. It is not a problem of physics, but of ethics. It is easier to denature plutonium than to denounce the evil spirit of man. That's what Einstein said. You know that even researchers figured that out. In fact, back in the 50s, let me just read this to you. In the 1950s, a psychologist, Stanton Samnen, and a psychiatrist, Samuel Yackelson, sharing the conventional wisdom that crime is caused by environment, set out to prove their point. They began a 17-year study involving thousands of hours of clinical testing of 250 inmates here in the District of Columbia. To their astonishment, they discovered that the cause of crime cannot be traced to environment, poverty, or oppression. Instead, crime is the result of individuals making, as they put it, wrong moral choices. Well, isn't that what God says? It goes on. In their 1977 work, The Criminal Personality, they concluded that the answer to crime is a conversion of the wrongdoer to a more responsible lifestyle. In 1987, Harvard professors James Q. Wilson and Richard J. Herrnstein came to similar conclusions in their book, Crime and Human Nature. They determined that the cause of crime is a lack of proper moral training among young people during the morally formative years, particularly ages one to six. Well, that is what God says. That's what God has said all along. In fact, that brings us to the very famous Romans 3.10. Let's look at it together. It says, as it is written, there is none righteous, no, not one. We find this universal analysis of God. There is none righteous, no, not one. The prophet Jeremiah put it this way in Jeremiah 17.9, the Bible says, Who can know it? Above all things, the heart is deceitful and desperately wicked. Who can know? Who can really understand it? Jiminy Cricket said, always let your heart or your conscience be your guide. God says that's folly. Who can know the heart? The heart is a liar. The heart will mislead us. It is desperately wicked, in fact, above all things, the Bible says. You say, well, I'm not so bad, Pastor. Well, notice all these indictments toward us. By the way, where we see the words in the Bible as it is written, what are we looking at? Well, we're looking at something that is quoting the Old Testament, right? As it is written, the New Testament wasn't written yet. So what Paul is doing is he's going back to the Old Testament, and he's about to quote some things from the Old Testament. And verses 10 through 18 are like beads on a string of a necklace. He just strings them all together, one after another, all these Scriptures. And he cuts and he paces them together here, and really a lot of it is actually found in the first three verses of Psalm 14 of the Old Testament, which says, they are corrupt, they have done abominable works, there is none that doeth good. The Lord looked down from heaven upon the children of men to see if there were any that did understand and seek God. they are all gone aside, they are altogether become filthy, there is none that doeth good, no, not one." Does that sound familiar? It's what we're reading right here, and much of it is what Paul is quoting. Now, it's not flattering, but let's move on. In verse number 11, There is none that understandeth. There is none that seeketh after God. None that seeketh after God. Have you heard of being a seeker-sensitive church? Well, the Bible says there's none that seeketh after God. And first and foremost, Fargo Baptist Church is trying to attract God. Not people. Alright? That is our priority. We want God to be pleased here. We just preach truth and let God sort it out. But the second thing about being seeker sensitive is the Bible says there's none that seeketh after God. And Christ said, no man cometh unto me except the Father draw him. I was talking to somebody this last week. And it was very evident that God was working in their heart and in their life and drawing them. Now, God is about to peer down from heaven and do this investigation into the heart of mankind. He's gonna lay it out for us here. He's gonna be candid, he's going to be blunt, he's going to be frank in his analysis, but he's gonna be honest. And so in verse number 12, he starts out by saying, they are all gone out of the way. They are together become unprofitable. There is none that doeth good, no, not one." Not one. He says, they've all gone out of the way. I heard many years ago where these shepherds in Istanbul, Turkey, were tending to their flocks. I mean, there were hundreds of sheep there, and they stopped to have lunch, and while they're having lunch, one sheep went over and jumped off a cliff. And they went, oh my, but that wasn't all. Another one followed them, and another one followed them, and they got up and they started to try and stop it here, but they just kept going over the cliff, one at a time, over 1,500 of them. Over 400 of them died in that fall. And more would have died, but they kept landing on the pile that was getting soft and higher by that point. But it's really a good picture of all gone out of the way. And we find that hurt instinct taking place. Now, in verse number 12, note those words, they're all gone out of the way. All, all of us. And the going out of the way here speaks of us getting off of God's course, and it doesn't take long with human nature. Remember when God miraculously showed the Jewish people in Egyptian bondage all these miracles, ten of them in all. I mean, He sent blood and frogs and lice and darkness and all these plagues upon Egypt. And finally, the Passover takes place, and they get out of there. I mean, the Red Sea parts, God's following them with this cloud and this fire, and they know God's there, but what do they decide to do? to make a couple of golden calves and worship them. And God says to Moses in Exodus 32.8, they have turned aside quickly out of the way which I commanded them. That's what we do. We turn aside quickly. That's why we come to church, by the way. It keeps us on course, even to save people. Because as the songwriter so rightly said, prone to wander, Lord, I feel it. I don't know about you, I feel it. Now, we miss that point. We don't catch that point. In fact, when it comes to sin, we rename it. Here's what happens. Man calls it an accident. God calls it an abomination. Man calls it a defect. God calls it a disease. Man calls it an error. God calls it an enmity. Man calls it liberty. God calls it lawlessness. Man calls it a trifle. God calls it a tragedy. Man calls it a mistake, but God calls it madness. Man calls it weakness, God calls it willfulness. You know what Jesus Christ said in Matthew 15, 19? He said, for out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts. False witness, blasphemies, the list goes on. That's what the Savior said. So we see, first of all, this universal analysis. Secondly, we see this unflattering autopsy. What God does is He just lays out human nature here, and He does an autopsy on it. And it's not flattering. And it's taken from Psalm 5, it's taken from Psalm 10, Psalm 14, Psalm 36, Psalm 140, it's taken from Isaiah 59. And the point that God is trying to make here is what the Jewish people, who are so self-righteous and always justifying themselves, and he was trying to tell them through this passage, no, you are equally dependent upon my grace. You are equally dependent upon my mercy. You are no less sinners than the Gentiles. And so he lays it out for him here. And he gives him a number of issues that we have. He starts with the head. He mentions four things and he doesn't even leave the head. Notice the first part of verse 13. Their throat is an open sepulcher. That's a grave, an open grave. And with their tongues they have used deceit. The poison of asps is under their lips. So he says here, you have issues. He speaks here, first of all, of a flattering tongue. And he speaks here of really the two-faced nature that we often have. You say, well, I'm not a two-faced person, aren't you? Aren't you really? You married people here, have you ever been in a tiff and a spat and kind of ragging on each other? And all of a sudden the phone rang. and you answer the phone, hello? Oh, yes, oh yes, we're planning on being there, you know, and we can just like flip a switch. Flattering tongue. Two-face. Then it mentions in verse number 13, the poison of asps is under their lips. An asp is an adder. An adder is a poisonous snake. And that snake was found in those parts, especially in Egypt and Libya, it was sand-colored. And along the sandy roads of that region of the world, the Middle East, that snake would hang out there and a passerby would walk through and get bit on the leg and it was like a two-stepper. You were dead instantly if you got bit by that asp. In fact, Cleopatra did not want to be taken hostage by Augustus back to Rome, and so according to history, she allowed an asp to bite her on the arm, and she died very quickly. In fact, did you know that Jesus Christ compares sinners to snakes? In Matthew 23 and verse 33, He says, Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell? That's not flattering, is it? To be compared to a snake. Well, it goes on in verse number 14. It says, Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness. Yikes! We're not even below the head yet. It's still up in the head and it mentions this mouth that is full of cursing and bitterness. You ever curse? Now don't answer that out loud. It's become an American pastime, hasn't it? Our favorite indoor sport. And we've just gotten used to it. Everybody curses. You hear it on TV. You hear it at the office. It's no biggie anymore. Everybody just cusses. But did you know what Christ said in Matthew 12, 36? He said, Imagine that being replayed, that blasphemy, that cussing, that blue streak, that blue smoke in the air when you get done, using the mouth God gave you to pray with, to cuss with instead. By the way, the third commandment, God says, thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain. Do you take God's name in vain? You know that passage goes on and God says, I will not hold him guiltless that taketh my name in vain. That is all being recorded. And God says, I will not hold him guiltless that does that. You know, you find the apostle here, and he's quoting Psalm 10 and verse 7. He says, his mouth is full of cursing and deceit and fraud, and under his tongue is mischief in vanity. That tongue can be such a mischievous thing. In fact, verse 14 mentions bitterness, which leads to gossip. We ever guilty of gossip? Do we ever malign somebody? Do we ever spread the manure, as I would often put it, of gossip? Because that's really what it is. It's talking down somebody else. It's poisoning the mind of somebody about this other person over here by slandering them and defaming them and vilifying them. It's a poisoning of the mind, the whispering, the spreading of gossip. And the sad thing about gossip, folks, is once it's out there, it does keep spreading. There was a country church years ago with a pastor and his wife who were gossiped about by a lady in the church. She was saying all kinds of terrible things. And finally, it caused some real trouble. It split the church, and she came to the pastor's house. He lived out in the country there on a farm, and she said, I didn't realize it would do that much damage. I'm sorry for what I did. He detected she wasn't real repentant about it. He said, well, you've apologized, and that's all well and fine. But let me show you the result of gossip. And he reached into the chicken's den there, and he pulled out a couple of handfuls of feather, and it was a windy day, and he threw the feathers in the air, and they just scattered everywhere, hundreds of them. And he said, now ma'am, you need to go try and pick those all up, recover all those. And she went, it's impossible. And he said, so it is with gossip. It just spreads like that, and afterwards it's impossible to fix the damage that is done by gossip. God help us with this. Guard that tongue. We read in James chapter 3 and verse number 8 that the tongue can no man tame. It is an unruly evil full of poison. And it is. Now we leave the head and we actually move on to some action here, all right? Notice in verse number 15, it says their feet are swift to shed blood. Destruction and misery are in their ways. We find here the Apostle Paul, he's actually quoting from Isaiah 59.7, which says, "...their feet run to evil, and they make haste to shed innocent blood. Their thoughts are thoughts of iniquity, wasting and destruction are in their paths. The way of peace they know not." And again, we find this unflattering autopsy, but it's our nature. It's our nature. We're born with that nature. You know, if you took a lion and you let him into a cage and there was a big slab of raw meat over here and there was a pile of grain over there, where would he go? Well, it's a no-brainer. He has no interest in that pile of grain. He would go straight for the meat. That's His nature. There's that inward nature, that inward brutality, if you will. And so there is with us. You know, the problem is, we can become accustomed to it. And our conscience can become seared over a period of time. You've heard of Blackbeard. He was an actual person. He was actually a pirate who robbed and plundered and murdered on the open seas. And finally he was caught and he was brought to trial in New York, and there on trial he admitted that when he plundered his first ship as a young sailor, when he shot and killed his first victim, he said he couldn't eat for days. He went for nights without sleeping. It bothered him so. But he continued to do it, and do it, and do it. And in time, he said, I could plunder, and murder, and pillage, and commit all kinds of atrocities, and go have a big meal afterwards, and go to bed after that, and sleep like a baby. What happened? his conscience became seared and hardened and defiled and even deadened. And these are words that the Bible uses. You know, how could it be that Roman citizens could go to the Colosseum and they could watch these gladiators come out who had been fed this succulent diet to enlarge their veins and make them bleed more and watch them kill each other person after person by the hundreds. And here would be these delicate women cheering for this sort of thing. They're in the Colosseum. Well, they'd gotten calloused. How could it be that a little delicate, dimpled girl with pigtails and a dolly in her hand would go skipping into the Colosseum to watch this kind of stuff go on? Well, they had gotten hardened as a society. You know, if God wasn't on this earth right now, if the Spirit of God was not restraining evil, You couldn't believe what it'll be like. In fact, during the tribulation period, a seven-year bloodbath on this earth, a time of chaos, the Holy Spirit is going to be lifted, according to 2 Thessalonians 2. And the restraining that He's now doing won't take place anymore. The Spirit of God will leave with the rapture of the saints, and this earth, I'm telling you, it'll be an ugly place to live at that time, and you'll really see human nature. You know, we had a missionary last Sunday stand in this pulpit from the Philippines, and he said, over there you can hire a hitman for as little as $50. I was telling this preacher down here about this last week. He said, oh, I know a guy over in the Philippines. He was a hitman. He said, I must have killed over a hundred men. for 50 bucks. Can you imagine that? Imagine what it's going to be like during the tribulation period when God's not around anymore. This society is going to get its wish. They want God out of the picture. Well, they're going to get Him out of the picture eventually, and they're not going to like it. Now, we find in verses 15 and 16, it says their feet are swift to shed blood. Destruction and misery are in their ways. And then notice verse 17, and the way of peace. have they not known? The way of peace have they not known? They cannot keep the peace. You know anyone like that? Troublemakers. They like to stir it up. Christ said, blessed are the peacemakers. But they're troublemakers. You know what's sad is you find them even in churches, don't you? Troublemakers within good churches. You hear about the church that had a revival service, and afterwards the pastor and his assistant were talking it over, and the assistant said, Oh, we had great victories! We added three families to the church! And the preacher spoke up and he said, Yeah, and we got rid of four. It was a revival. There are some troublemakers you don't even want them around anymore. You know, Paul mentioned Alexander the coppersmith, didn't he? John mentioned Diotrephes. Even in Bible times, they had him. Somebody said most trouble is produced by those who don't produce anything else. Isn't that the truth? When it's within a church, the troublemakers that are producing the trouble normally aren't producing anything else. We read this, 2 Timothy 2.23, it says, But foolish and unlearned questions avoid, knowing that they do Gender strifes. Think of that expression. You know what it means to gender and strifes. There are those who gender strifes. It is hard to go forward in a church with troublemakers within a local church. I was talking to the preacher down here this last week about how as a church grows, changes are necessary. It has to happen. And there are those who resist that progress. I'm not talking about bad changes. I'm not talking about changing the truth. We have the same truth we've had here for decades. But having to make those adjustments in order to go higher and forward, and there are some that just hate it. They hate the changes. Woodrow Wilson said, if you want to make enemies, try to change something. Isn't that the truth? And we might have them here. You're stuck in the 90's or something, and you're just stewing about these changes around here. God help you. God help you to get on board. And God help you not to be a troublemaker. We need to go forward. You ought to be thankful you are in a growing church, in a nation where most of them are going in the opposite direction. Don't get to heaven before you realize, boy, we had something special there. Get on board. Pull on this end of the rope. Get with us here. We're trying to go forward and get something done for God. Now, we might not agree on everything, and as I said this last week, we might be brothers, but we're not identical brothers. We're not twin brothers, right? And we don't have to be. I'm okay with that. You know, two Christians are better than one, when they're one. when they're one, when they're on the same page. You know what Vance Havner said, that preacher of yesteryears? He said, Christians are like snowflakes. He said, they're frail by themselves, but you put them together, and if they stick together, they can stop traffic. And how true that is. God help us as a church to be on the same page. Paul here is using some strong language. And by the way, he's quoting David, he's quoting Isaiah. These were heroes of the Jews, and he's making his point. There's this universal analysis. It's not flattering. It's an unflattering autopsy. And thirdly, we see what I call the unfortunate assumption. This is where most people arrive at. He moves on in verse number 19, and he says, Now we know that what thinks whoever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law, that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God. But, but, but, I'm a good person. Every mouth stop. But, but, but, I go to church. Every mouth stop. But, but, but, I've been baptized. Every mouth stop. But I help little old ladies across the street. And I buy Girl Scout cookies. And I do all these good things. And the Bible says every mouth needs to be stopped and all the world become guilty. before God. God says that self-righteousness needs to stop. Why is it that people are self-righteous? Well, normally because they're comparing themselves to somebody else. There is always somebody worse than us, isn't there? There is always somebody that we can look down on. And so we compare ourselves to somebody else. And the Bible says in 2 Corinthians 10, that's not wise. They comparing themselves among themselves are not wise. That's what the Pharisee did when he went into the temple with the publican. You remember the story? And he said, Lord, I thank you that I'm not like that guy. What a loser. What a zero with the ring rubbed out. What a sinner. And the publican actually is the one who repented and got right there in the temple and left converted. Psalm 143 verse 2, we read the psalmist saying, No man living shall be justified before God. The psalmist says, I don't want to enter into judgment with you, Lord. In your sight, nobody could be justified. And that's it. We all have issues. Now notice verse number 19. It says, Now we know that what thingsoever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law, that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world become guilty before God. Notice that word guilty. That means subject to the judgment of God in the Greek. Guilty and subject to the judgment of God. That is the thought that this world hates. And that is the fact they're accountable to God. The whole issue is accountability to God. This whole evolution issue, that is man doing anything he can to explain away God so he doesn't have to stand before Him one day in his own mind. The so-called free thinkers, the humanism, all that, it really boils down to an accountability issue. I don't want to have to answer to God and stand guilty before God one day. That is the hardness of the human heart. One of my best friends after I got saved, I went back to them and I witnessed to them. I was talking about Revelation 4.11 where it mentions that we were created for God's glory and pleasure. And boy, he stopped me and he said, wait a minute, are you telling me that I'm just some creation of God like a chess piece that God's going to move around? And I thought to myself, what a hard heart. I have seen the meat get ugly when you bring up this thought of accountability and standing guilty before God. That's what verse number 19 says. Now, it mentions here the law, and the law is the Ten Commandments, but it's so many other commandments, hundreds of commandments. It's really talking about God's moral conduct that He wants us to live by. And it mentions here that through that law, God's holiness is revealed and our sinfulness is revealed. And that's the purpose of the law. Notice in verse 20, it adds, Therefore, by the deeds of the law, there shall no flesh be justified in his or God's sight, For by the law is the knowledge of sin. Now here's where 95% of all religion errors. I mean, be it Buddhism, or Hinduism, or Islam, or most of Christianity, here's where 95 plus percent of all religion errors. And in verse number 20, it puts its finger on it. They never tell their followers that they cannot work their way to God. And so that's, by human nature, what man is trying to do. They're trying to earn their way to heaven. You ever think about how futile this really is? I mean, just stop and look at the Ten Commandments. The first commandment, have you ever put anything ahead of God? A person, a relationship, money, a business? Whatever. I mean, your life revolves around it. You're into it. And God's kind of on the back burner. I think we're all guilty of that. We've also all concocted this God of our own imagination, one that lives by our standards. We reinvent God, and we have this God that pleases us. And a good God wouldn't send anyone to hell, and you're going to tell me that God would do this. We're inventing God in our mind. That's a violation of the second commandment. I mentioned the third already, taking God's name in vain. How about always honoring the Lord's Day? Have we always done that? We've blown that one, there's the fourth. How about honoring our parents? Have you always honored your parents immediately? Fully? Have you always been obedient? You ever had an attitude? Of course you have. So you've messed up on the fifth commandment. How about ever hating somebody? Ever done that? Ever gotten mad at somebody? Maybe you're bitter towards somebody even right now? Well, you've broken the sixth commandment. You committed murder of the heart, according to Christ. How about lusting after the opposite sex? Have you ever done that? Christ calls it adultery of the heart, and it's the seventh commandment. You've broken that one, I'm sure. How about stealing, taking something that wasn't yours? Maybe too long of a coffee break, or a lunch break, or even a paper clip from the office, or some rubber bands, or a pen, or whatever. We've all stolen something. What about that ninth commandment? How shall not bear false witness? You ever told a lie? Of course you have. Yet, the Bible says all liars shall have their part in the lake that burneth with fire and brimstone. We call them little white lies, don't we? They're serious. God's going to hold us accountable to them. How about coveting? You ever wanted something you didn't have? Lusted after something you didn't have? You've broken that 10th commandment as well. Now you say, well I haven't broken all of them. It only takes one actually. Like the links of a chain. How many chain links do you have to break if you're hanging over a cliff by 10 chain links? Only one, right? And James tells us, whosoever is guilty of one is guilty of all, they're a unit. And so we stand guilty before God. The purpose of the law, don't get me wrong, the purpose of the law is not to drive man to self-improvement. Well, I'll just start going to church then. I'll just start buying Girl Scout cookies and helping little old ladies across the street and doing all kinds of nice deeds. No, no. No, the purpose of the law is not to drive us to self-improvement. That's where most people go wrong. That's what most religion teaches. That's not what the Bible teaches at all. The purpose of the law is to show us what sinners we are. and how serious sin really is. It's no wonder that Ephesians 2.8 says, For by grace are you saved through faith, and that not of yourselves. It is the gift of God, and not of works, lest any man should boast. You want to be saved? You want to know for sure you're going to heaven when you die? Well, it's through faith, not of yourselves. It's the gift of God. What do you do with a gift? You receive it. You don't try and earn it. It's not of works. lest any man should boast. In fact, we read in Titus 3.5, not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us. Not by works, but by mercy. And then Galatians 2.16, couldn't say it any clearer, knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ. For by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified. You know, God is trying to show us our need. That's why He mentions all these things here in Romans chapter 3. He's not trying to rub our nose in it. He's trying to wake us up and show us what we're like and get us to admit it so that we can do something about it. That is the whole purpose of it. We have a sinful nature. And ten commandments aside, we're selfish, aren't we? We are stubborn, aren't we? We get angry, don't we? We're greedy. We're jealous. We're manipulative. What about our thoughts? We have 10,000 thoughts a day, according to researchers, and not all of them very good, are they? You know, Robert Louis Stevenson years ago wrote a classic novel, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. You remember that? Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Dr. Jekyll was a respectable physician, but he invented this serum that when he drank it, he turned to this awful person, he called him Mr. Hyde. Mr. Hyde was a crook, he was a thief, he was even a murderer. And Dr. Jekyll got to where he liked stepping out and being Mr. Hyde. But he kept doing it and going back and forth and finally he couldn't control it anymore. And his evil side dominated him. There was a French preacher years ago speaking to King Louis XIV, and he was talking about what Paul had to say here in this passage, and these two natures, and he said, it's like these two men within us. And the king stopped him and he said, ah, ah, those two men. I know them well. I know them well. Do you know them well? I know them well. You know, Mark Twain was right when he said, we're all like the moon. We all have our dark side, don't we? We all have that secret side, if you will, which leads us to our need for a Savior. That is the whole point of what Paul is saying here. The Apostle Paul is laying this broad, this deep foundation. He's leading up to justification. That's what he's going to get to eventually in free grace. But he lays this foundation showing us why we need that grace. Think about it. If you could earn your way to heaven, and you can't, you ought to know by now it's impossible, but if you even could, why did Jesus Christ bother even coming to this earth and shedding blood and dying for your sins? Salvation is the gift of God. We just have to admit we're sinners. The work's been done, the price has been paid, the blood has been shed. We simply need to put our faith and our trust in what Christ did on Calvary's cross, in a heart of repentance, turning from sin, with a heart of faith to the Savior, calling upon Him and asking Him to save us, and being what the Bible calls, born again. Born again. Jesus Christ came to our rescue when we were in dire straits. There was a man in his, I suppose, late twenties. He owned this big, huge snake, and why he did, I don't know. But he kept it in this big glass aquarium-type thing, and he'd feed it with raw meat from his own table. And one day he was at the pet store, And he bought a white mouse. He said, this will be a real treat for my snake. So he brought this white mouse home, and while the snake was sleeping, he carefully laid it in the box there that the aquarium was holding the snake within. Of course, that poor little mouse there, he looked around, he realized the condition he's in, but the snake was asleep. And you know what that mouse began to do? He began to take the wood chips in the cage there, and he began to heap them up on that big old snake. And he went back and forth, up and down that snake, heaping up this pile of sawdust there, until finally, he had covered the snake over. And in his mind, now he's safe, right? Well, the owner of the snake, in pity, saw what the mouse was doing. He took pity on the mouse, realizing that snake would awake at any moment, shake that sawdust off, and swallow that mouse alive. The owner reached down and he pulled the white mouse out, and he didn't go through with it. But what a picture of what sinners try to do, isn't it? I mean, there's sin like a snake, and we try to just heap sawdust over the top of it. Now it's out of sight and out of mind. We're okay. It's pitiful. It really is. What is salvation? It is God reaching down into that snake pen and pulling us up like He did the white mouse. That's what He did for me on March 5th, 1981. It was a Thursday night in Crookston, Minnesota, and I'll never forget it, when God reached down by His grace, when I called upon Him, and He saved me. I was born again. You know what's amazing in all of this? God knows how depraved we are. God's aware of all of our sinful nature, and in spite of that, in spite of that, He still loves us. We read in John 3.16, For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life. God loves you. If you have never been saved, it's not automatic. You go, I was born in America, this is a Christian country. I was raised in a Christian home. I've grown up hearing the gospel. I'm a Christian. No, it's not automatic. It's not automatic. It is a gift. It starts with taking our depravity by the horns, and recognizing it, and repenting, and receiving the grace of God. Have you done that? You've been listening to Pastor Tony Skeving of the Fargo Baptist Church in Fargo, North Dakota. If you would like a CD of today's message, you can obtain one by sending a gift of $2 to Fargo Baptist Church, 3303 23rd Avenue South, Fargo, North Dakota, 58103. That address again, Fargo Baptist Church, 3303 23rd Avenue South Fargo, North Dakota 58103. We hope you'll join Pastor Skeving next time right here on Pulpit Power. Pulpit Power is a production of Heaven 88.7.