Our Old Covenant reading will be from Psalm 51. So if you'll turn in your Scriptures, your copy of the Scriptures to Psalm 51, I'll be reading the first 13 verses. And then I'll be reading from Romans 3 for the New Covenant reading. So out of reverence for God's Word, please stand as we hear the reading of His Word. To the chief musician, a psalm of David, when Nathan the prophet went to him after he had gone in to Bathsheba. Have mercy upon me, O God, according to your lovingkindness, according to the multitude of your tender mercies. Blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin. For I acknowledge my transgressions, and my sin is always before me. Against you and you only have I sinned, and done this evil in your sight, that you may be found just when you speak, and blameless when you judge. Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin my mother conceived me. Behold, you desire truth in the inward parts, and in the hidden part you will make me to know wisdom. Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean. Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. Make me hear joy and gladness, that the bones you have broken may rejoice. Hide your face from my sins, and blot out all my iniquities. Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. Do not cast me away from Your presence, and do not take Your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of Your salvation, and uphold me by Your generous Spirit. Then I will teach transgressors Your ways, and sinners shall be converted to You." Our New Covenant reading is from Romans Romans chapter 3. Romans chapter 3 verses 1 to 8. What advantage then has the Jew? Or what is the profit of circumcision? Much in every way. chiefly because to them were committed the oracles of God. For what if some did not believe? Will their unbelief make the faithfulness of God without effect? Certainly not. Indeed, let God be true, but every man a liar, as it is written, that you may be justified in your words and may overcome when you are judged. But if our unrighteousness demonstrates the righteousness of God, what shall we say? Is God unjust to inflict wrath? I speak as a man. Certainly not. For then how will God judge the world? For if the truth of God has increased through my lie to His glory, why am I also still judged as a sinner? And why not say, let us do evil that good may come, as we are slanderously reported, and as some affirm that we say. Their condemnation is just. All flesh is the grass, and all man's glory is like the flower. The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God abides forever. This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. Please be seated. In the evenings, we've been looking at Paul's letter to the Romans. And we've gotten to the third chapter of his presentation of the Gospel. And that's what the first five chapters of this letter are about. Paul is telling the Romans what he calls, My Gospel. He is proclaiming to them what he calls the Gospel of Christ. In another place, he calls it the Gospel of God. That's what he's proclaiming. That's what he's teaching the Romans in this letter. And a full three and a half chapters of that message are about judgment and condemnation. He hasn't even gotten to the part about Jesus yet. We haven't even gotten to that. And we're in the third chapter into the letter. And I think he's trying to tell us something. We need to hear that. We need to be warned about that. We need to be persuaded of the danger that we are in as sinners. In chapter 1, the Apostle Paul talks about the Gentiles. God's wrath is being revealed from heaven against the Gentiles. And they had forsaken the God that they knew. They knew God. He's everywhere. They can see His presence everywhere. He has manifest Himself in their own hearts, in the creation all around them. They know He's there. But they suppress that truth in unrighteousness. And so God gave Him over. Let Him do it. Go on, He says. And He turns them over to homosexuality and all kinds of perversions and vile affections. And that was the judgment of God itself, that they were turned over to these things, and that's in chapter 1. And then on top of that, he says, they approve of others who do it too. They encourage others to do it, which we see in our own day. And in chapter 2, he turns to another group. He's not talking about the pagan Gentiles out there who are practicing all kinds of immorality. This second group he's speaking to would not have approved. They would have shook their finger and shook their head and said, naughty, naughty to them. The second group is God's covenant people. These are people with the sign of the covenant. The Jews. And He asks them, He goes, yeah, you're quick to condemn. You see yourself as the teacher of the nations. But do you practice the same things? And if you do, then you're no better than they are, and you're in just as sorry state as they are, and under the judgment of God as well. Because it's not just the hearers of the word who are justified, verse 13. It's not the hearers of the law that are just in the sight of God, but the doers of the law that will be justified. And Paul's Gospel is a Gospel that teaches that at the end of time, verse 16, Jesus Christ will judge the secrets of men. He's going to judge not just our outward actions, He will judge our outward actions and our works. But it says He will judge the secrets of men. And that's His Gospel. That is part of His Gospel. Look at verse 16. In the day that God will judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ according to my Gospel, there is a day coming where God will judge all men. And part of that judgment will be what's happening in your heart, even right now. What's the state of your heart now? So he's warned the Jews not to trust in their physical status, circumcised. Not to trust in their covenant privileges. They're Jews, they've received God's Word. They have all these advantages. It says, do not trust in those. And he actually goes on to say this in verses 28 and 29. For he is not a Jew who is one outwardly, nor is circumcision that which is outward in the flesh. But he is a Jew. who is one inwardly, and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, not in the letter, whose praise is not from men, but from God." And we could substitute baptism there at that point. It's not your outward baptism that saves you, it is the work of the inward baptism of the heart, that circumcision of the heart. If you don't have that, your outward baptism will only condemn you. You must have that baptism of the heart, that circumcision of the heart. And I want to speak to the covenant children here that are being raised in the Lord. And I want you to think about this for a minute. Are you making the most of these privileges? You have been given great privileges. Are you making the most of those privileges? Well, Paul has been so rough on the Jews in chapter 2. He's been so, well, we wouldn't say harsh. He's lovingly poked the knife in there to try to get them to figure out what's really going on in the heart. Because the heart's deceitful, isn't it? We can fool ourselves all day long. So he's been prying into their hearts to try to get them to awaken to the fact, are you really circumcised of heart? Are you really born again of the Spirit? Or is it just outward for you? And he's been prying. And so he expects that there's going to be a question that arises from this when he says things like, hey, you know, the Gentile believer is in a better position to judge you Jews in His obedience than you are to judge Him in your disobedience. So here you are, a Jew over here, you're in no position to judge the Gentile who's obeying God's law, even though he's not circumcised. He's been saying things like that. And so that raises the question, well, what's the benefit of being a Jew? And that's the question that he expects and he asks in verse 1 of chapter 3. What advantage then has the Jew? Or what is the profit? What's the benefit of circumcision? Now I think the answer that they would expect after everything he said in chapter 2 was not at all. Jews have no advantage over Gentiles, no benefits over Gentiles, but that's not his response. Look at verse 2. Much in every way. The Jews have great benefits. They have great advantages. Much in every way. And then he points to that chief advantage that had been given to the Jews, God's covenant people, chiefly because to them to the Jews were committed or were entrusted the very oracles of God. That's the great advantage of the Jew. Where did they learn about circumcision? It was in the oracles of God. Where did they learn about justice? In the oracles of God. Where did they learn about the God of heaven and earth? In the oracles of God. Where did they learn about their own sinful state and need of a Savior? Where did they learn of Christ? In the oracles of God. That is the great advantage that has been entrusted to them. And you have the same advantage. He says that's the chief advantage of being part of the people of God, being a part of God's covenant people, is that you have the Word of God. So I'm going to ask some questions. I'm going to pry a little bit here. I'm going to go to meddling, as one friend says. Preacher's done gone to meddling. Do you really believe that? Do you believe that this Word of God is your greatest advantage in this world? That this is your chief advantage? This is the chief benefit and blessing that you have, is that you have committed to you the oracles of God. That's the great advantage. When you said, do we have advantage? What's the advantage of being a Jew? Much in every way. Chiefly, to you were committed the oracles of God. So here we are. Do you really believe it? Does it show? Does it show in your reverence for this Word? Do you love and delight in this Word? Do you long for it? Do you miss it when you stay apart from it? Do you want to hear it proclaimed? Do you want to read it? Do you want to meditate on it? Do you want to think about it? Do you want to memorize it? Is this Word, you say, this is my advantage. This is what God has given me and it is my great advantage. That's the chief advantage that we as the people of God have today in this world, in the pagan world that's arising around us. This is our greatest blessing, our chief benefit. I was not raised in the church. I didn't really know anything about the Bible until I started to attend a Bible study in college, 21 years old. And so I started learning late in life and started to study late in life. And I knew right away that that had been a great disadvantage to me. I did not have the Word of God growing up. I did not have these insights. And when I read the Gospel of Matthew, it just started to make sense out of all of life. No wonder. No wonder my life has gone the way it has. No wonder the wreck that I have made of things. right here makes sense of it all. If I had heeded the Lord Jesus, if I'd known what he'd said and I'd obeyed it, it would have been so much better. So covenant children, young ones here, starting young, all of you need to hear this, but really the young ones, you have a great benefit and a great advantage that you're being raised in a Christian home. You have the Word of God at your fingertips. If you don't have a hunger for it, if you're not loving that word, if you don't see that as your chief advantage and something you delight in, call out to God even now that he would raise you up to make you see. He would open your eyes so that you could see this chief advantage that you have in the word of God. And it may mean this, that your baptism is only outward. You do not have the baptism of the heart. If that's the case, cry out to God for that new heart, that He would give you a heart of flesh, that He would make you to be born again. So that's the first thing Paul says to the Jews who question him. The Jews are angry with him. If you read chapter 2, you can probably understand why every town that Paul went to, the Jews tried to kill him. Everywhere he went, did you ever notice that in the book of Acts? After a few days of his preaching this gospel, the Jews want to kill him. He has meddled too much. He has, you don't know who we are. We have circumcision. We have Abraham. And he says, but do you have the circumcision of the heart? Do you have the faith of Abraham? And it challenged religious people. And I'm challenging religious people today. That's what we are. We are religious people. And sometimes when religious people get challenged, they get mad. They're angry. And they want to kill the apostle and take him out and stone him. I hope that is not your response. Or it could be a rough afternoon for me. I hope your response is better that you say, yes, yes. We need the Lord Jesus. He is our only hope. And this Word is a precious treasure. And we should treat it as a precious treasure. And if you're convicted about this, ask with God's help that He would renew your love of His Word and give you a hunger for it. What if you're an unbeliever here? Dr. Sproul said in his commentary, he says, if you're an unbeliever, if you don't believe this, the wisest thing that you will ever do in your life is to listen to the word of God every chance you get. Listen to the word of God. It is a tremendous advantage to you too, even as an unbeliever. It's an advantage to anyone who would listen to this word. Even if you don't like what you hear, even if you don't believe what you hear, I urge you to take advantage of this, advantage of the Word of God, and give heed to it." Well, they have other objections. This is the expected arguments, and the second objection has to do with, what about all the Jews who don't believe? Verse 3. What about all those Jews who don't believe? He says, "...for what if some did not believe?" What if some of the Jews didn't believe God's Word? Will their unbelief make the faithfulness of God without effect? Will the unbelief of the covenant community nullify the faithfulness of God? So the question is this, if we look out there at the covenant community of the Jews, it looks like a lot of them don't believe. Huh. Doesn't that somehow reflect on God? And the Apostle Paul is saying, no, not in the least. If people do not believe this Word, that doesn't reflect on Him at all as far as His faithfulness. Does their unbelief make the faithfulness of God without effect? Does it nullify the faithfulness of God? No, they were greatly blessed. God would give them all these blessings, and particularly the blessing of His Word. And their unbelief, and the unbelief of the Jews, has absolutely no effect on the faithfulness of God. God is faithful even when His people are not. You might have heard something similar. Church is full of hypocrites. They don't really believe it. Does that affect God if it was true? Does that change His faithfulness? Is He now unfaithful because His people sometimes are unfaithful? No, there is no unfaithfulness with Him. The unbelief of those who have His sign of the covenant, the unbelief does not nullify the faithfulness of God. He is faithful and always will be faithful. And so he cries out the answer. He gives the answer to that objection in verse 4. Certainly not. Certainly not. Will their unbelief make the faithfulness of God without effect? Certainly not. And then he says, indeed, let God be true, but every man a liar. Let God be found true, though every man is found to be a liar. If you were to go through the entire world and could not find one person telling the truth, and that you would find that every person is lying, God would still be true. Does everybody understand that? The behavior of man does not change the nature of God. He is true even if every single person on the planet is a liar. And I think the Apostle Paul is implying something here. They are, if you know yourself. I don't think anybody here is going to say, no, I've never lied. All men are liars. God is always true. And if you were to search the world, and you could, you would find no one who's really true. And every man turns out to be a liar, it would not change one iota the truthfulness of God and the faithfulness of God. He's true no matter what men do. And then, in order to prove this point, and we're going to see this throughout the letter of the Romans, this is important. In order to prove Paul's point here, he quotes from the Old Testament. The Apostle Paul never treats the Old Testament as a lesser revelation. He never treats the Old Testament as something that needs to be proved by the New Testament. I remember thinking that as a new Christian. Well, if it says in the Old Testament, I better find something in the New Testament to prove that. The Apostles do exactly the opposite. Did you notice that? Whenever they make a claim, they go to the Old Testament to prove the point. They're quoting the Old Testament to prove what they're saying in the New Testament. That's what the Apostle does here. He turns to Psalm 51, which we read at the beginning, And he says, I'll read the whole verse four. Certainly not. Indeed, let God be true, but every man a liar, as it is written, that you may be justified in your words and may overcome when you are judged. So he's supporting his claim that God is true even though men are liars by referring to this psalm, and I had never looked at the psalm this way, and I hope I can explain to you what he's saying here. David is actually saying in that psalm that his sin justifies God. Hold on to that for a second. His sin justifies the Word of God. When he sinned with Bathsheba, when he committed murder, he says, I sinned against you and you only. that you may be justified in your words." David's sin in no way diminished the justice and righteousness of God. That's the thing we get tricked into. That's what unbelievers often complain about. They think, huh, his sin over there. Think about the evangelist. The great evangelist, he's over here, he falls into sin, he's a disgrace. All these terrible things come from that disgrace. And people start pointing at God. He's saying, that doesn't work. Actually, that guy's sin justifies the Word of God, because he sinned against God. We wouldn't even have known it was sin to commit adultery and murder people if God had not spoken in His Word. Did you all realize that? You should read the story of John Payton. Everybody should read it. It should be like required reading for the whole world, next to the Bible. It's not anywhere near the Bible, but it's a good book. But John Payton, when he goes to these pagan peoples, adultery and murder and eating the people you murder was the norm. That was the norm. They had no revelation of God. What made David's adultery and murder wrong? God's Word. God said, Thou shalt not murder. Thou shalt not commit adultery. So David's murder and adultery did not in any way reflect badly on God. It justifies God in His Word. God's already said that's wrong, that's evil. He hates that. And so, that's what David is saying in this psalm. That ultimately, our sins indirectly justify God and prove Him just and prove Him right. That you may be justified in your words and may overcome when you are judged. Now notice that. That you, God, may overcome when you are judged. Who's judging God? We are. We are. Now, when David sinned, the prophet Nathan came to him and he says, you have given men an occasion to blaspheme me. Right? The occasion. He set up the occasion. David, you were the king. You were the man after God's own heart. You go sin in this way. You give men the occasion to blaspheme me. But they have no right to do it. They have no right to do it. And they're not right in doing it. The sins of God's people actually justify God's Word indirectly. And He cannot be condemned. He cannot be judged. He cannot be implicated as an accessory to our sin. He hates the sin. He's already condemned it in His law, and He will judge the sin. So how could He be implicated in our sin? Well, there are those who judge God. They will be overcome, it says here. They will be overcome when they judge God, the end of verse four. But I want to talk about that for a second because in God's providence, we hit on that in Sunday school. I don't know how it always works out that way. Sunday school seems to jive with the sermon. Are you judging God? You are capable of doing it. You ever heard somebody say, I don't want to go to church. They're all a bunch of hypocrites there. Somehow the hypocrisy of the people in the church justifies them in not worshiping God. I don't have to worship God because they behave the way they do. That has nothing to do with you. Their behavior is before God, their sin is against God, and God will take care of that. But people like to use the hypocrisy among God's people as a reason to judge God. Now there's your people, ha, look what you've done, and they're judging God. So I'm not gonna publicly worship you or join myself to these people because they're hypocrites. Well, even if that's true, and that all men are liars, God's true. So that's a lame excuse. They're all a bunch of hypocrite excuses for your sin. It's lame. If you really do hate hypocrisy, say you really do hate hypocrisy, then you should be the most zealous person for the worship of God in public, in private, in secret, and everywhere you go. If you really hate hypocrisy, you need to get on God's side, because He hates it too. There's an irony in this when we criticize God because of the hypocrisy of His people. We join with the hypocrites. Right? Hypocrite. Oh, they're being hypocritical. Yeah, God, I'm coming up here with hypocrites. I'm going to point my finger at you and judge you. That's foolishness. That's the people you'll be with for eternity. You want to get off that side. He's not on their side. He's against that. You want to go to His side and worship Him with all your zeal and all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, serving Him with everything you have in public, private, secret, Because their sins actually bear witness to the truth and the justice of God. But we are prone to put God in the dock, as C.S. Lewis says it. We're prone to put Him in the dock. And that's what happens in verse 5. Look at verse 5. Now, they even twist this, okay? Oh, so what you're saying is that our unrighteousness demonstrates the righteousness of God? Our sin justifies God? What shall we say? Is God unjust who inflicts wrath? I speak as a man." Do you see where the argument's going? So you're telling me that David's sin justified God. Well, then why did he judge David? Are you telling me when I sin, it actually justifies God and shows His righteousness? Then how can He dare judge us? Wouldn't that be unjust to punish us for what He gets righteousness from? Here we are down here sinning. He's declared righteous by our sin. Huh, that's not fair that He would judge us for that. The apostle says, I speak as a man. And that's how men speak. Isn't that a crazy argument? If I sin, that will ultimately bring glory to God. So let's sin that God might be glorified. That's the argument they're putting forward. Again, this C.S. Lewis talks about this when he talks about putting God in the dock. The dock. What is the dock? The dock is the person who's on trial. When you're on trial, you're put in the dock. You're being accused. And when we're looking at God and we truly understand God, He's actually going to judge us. He's the judge. We are the guilty party. We're the accused. He's going to judge us. But what modern men try to do is they try to reverse places. I'm going to judge God. I'm going to put Him in the dock and question Him. And that, C.S. Lewis says, for modern man, the roles are reversed. Man is the judge, and God is in the dock. That's what's happening here, and the Apostle Paul was experiencing the same thing. Well, certainly not. May it never be, says the Apostle in verse 6. For then how will God judge the world? God is the judge of the world. You're not the judge of God. He's not doing anything unjust by judging us for our sins. But they don't give up. Verse 7, another objection. For if the truth of God has increased through my lie to His glory, why am I also still judged or condemned as a sinner? Do you see the argument? If God sovereignly ordains these things and my lies actually contribute to His glory, why not go ahead and sin? Why would He judge me? Why am I condemned as a sinner for doing the things that bring Him glory? What a crazy argument, right? You're thinking, I can't even follow the argument, it's so crazy, right? But that's what the objection is that's being made here. The truth of God is actually increased through my lie. And there is something fitting in this, too, for a minute. All resistance to God is futile. If you hate God, you will never win. All resistance is futile. Ultimately, all those who hate God will bring Him glory. Every one of them. They didn't want to, but they will. Their evil, their lies, will be to the glory of God when He pours out His wrath upon them. Resistance to God is futile. So they're right in that sense, but they're wrong in thinking God has no right to condemn them. He does have the right to condemn sinners. He's the judge of the world. So Paul answers this in verse 8, why not say, let us do evil that good may come as we are so slanderously reported and as some affirm that we say their condemnation is just. Paul is saying the way you're arguing, it's like saying let's do evil that good may come. Let's do evil things and then good will come. God will be glorified. The truth will be exalted. Let's do evil that good may come. And that, of course, is an absurd ethic. Although some do embrace it, there's a group of folks who'll say, it doesn't matter what you do, it's the outcome. It's the outcome that matters, and so you could do evil and then good would come, and that would be great. That kind of utilitarian ethic is wicked. And the Apostle Paul says, some people have actually accused him of teaching that. Here's another side note here. The Apostle Paul was accused of teaching this. taught any such thing. How far from the truth is that? Oh, you know that Apostle Paul is teaching over there? The Apostle Paul is teaching that let us do evil that good may come. That's his message. That's absurd. He would never teach that. And don't be surprised if the same thing happens today. People twist the words of preachers and teachers and say, you know what he's teaching? When he may not be teaching anything of the kind. And there is some irony in them saying that Paul teaches that because they teach it. That's their whole argument here. Oh, if we sin and it results in God's glory, why should we be judged? They're making the very same argument. That's another thing to watch for. Sinners often project their thinking onto others. You ever seen that? I remember being accused of something at the abortion mill by some people down there, and they were just saying, I was like, where is that even coming from? And then I realized they were projecting their own thoughts on me. And that does happen. They'll project their thoughts on you, and that's what's happening here. These enemies are projecting their thoughts on the Apostle Paul, that he's saying, let us do evil that good may come, which is exactly what they've just been arguing in their objections. So, sum it up. There's a lot here. I'll sum it up for us and we'll close. Christians, you have the chief advantage. God has given you the chief advantage over all peoples of the earth. You have the Word of God. Let that word daily wash you. Take that word in daily, read it, meditate on it, think about it, let it wash. Listen to the word preached. I hope you've been listening because you've just had the advantage proclaimed to you. And if you're listening, that will be for your good. Paul also warns us about the danger of putting God in the dock, judging God. That's foolishness. You can't judge God. He's your judge. Do you see how we reverse that though? Don't fall into that trick, and don't let others fall into that trick either, and they start judging God. Well, your God is like this. Who are you, oh man, to judge God? He will judge you, and that's the main message of this whole first part of Romans. And also men to pretend to be more righteous than God. And this is part of their judgment. They'll pretend, oh, I'm more righteous than Him. And they set themselves up at the judge of God and, oh, He does, I got to prevent Him from doing any bad things, as though they're the policemen of the universe and would, you know, they're really concerned about justice. Oh, we're very concerned about justice. They're not concerned about justice. God is just. He is concerned about justice and He will see it done in the world and on the last day. So here you are. What if you're sitting here and you say, I don't treasure that word. I have been judging God. I don't even like Him. you only have one hope. Your only hope is that this God truly is righteous. Although you've accused Him maybe of all kinds of wrongdoing and injustice, your only hope that He is righteous and that He is just and that He has made a way for sinners to be declared righteous and just in His sight. You have no hope but in the just one, the righteous one, the Lord Jesus Christ. So right now, don't wait. Call out to Him and beg for mercy. Let's pray. Oh God, show mercy to us sinners. Pray for your Holy Spirit to come. Convict hearts to apply your word. For if you don't build the house, we labor in vain. Who built it? We pray you build this house here. We pray it in Jesus' name. Amen.