All are guilty

Romans 3:9-19

All are guilty! Part 02

Romans 3:9-19, What then? Are we better than they? Not at all. For we have previously charged both Jews and Greeks that they are all under sin. 10 As it is written: “There is none righteous, no, not one; 11 There is none who understands; There is none who seeks after God. 12 They have all turned aside; They have together become unprofitable; There is none who does good, no, not one.” 13 “Their throat is an open tomb; With their tongues they have practiced deceit”; “The poison of asps is under their lips”; 14 “Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness.” 15 “Their feet are swift to shed blood; 16 Destruction and misery are in their ways; 17 And the way of peace they have not known.” 18 “There is no fear of God before their eyes.” 19 Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God.

We are in a courtroom setting and all men are brought before the judgment bar of God. God is seated behind the bench as the divine judge who is going to render a verdict in the case of

every man. This is Paul's final effort to show the reader the utter sinfulness of men, and his climactic argument in showing the sinfulness of man is to use the very Word of God. This is filled with Old Testament scriptures.

Last time we began with this trial. V 9, the Jews, and the Gentiles are sinners, and we must be included in that as well so that all are under sin. Believers by their human nature are no better than the rest. We are not anything different. We are just like the rest. We are all under sin.

The whole human race has inherited the legacy of Adam and Eve. When Adam and Eve fell in sin, they produced a line of sinners that was only broken in the birth of Jesus Christ, who in a very real sense bypassed the curse by being born of a virgin conceived by the Holy Spirit.

The indictment in verses 10 to 17 are 13 counts against men. Now the 13 indictment counts are divided into three categories. First is character, then is conversation, then is conduct. If this were a medical doctor rather than a theologian and an apostle, we might say that when man is

taken in for his exam it begins with X-rays. The X-ray reveals what's inside. Paul begins the analysis of the sinfulness of man, with an X-ray to show us his character. Then there is an inspection of his mouth and throat and finally a full physical examination. The result of which is that man is diseased in every part.

Paul begins with the character of man in verses 10 to 12, starting from inside. There are six negatives to describe man. 1. None righteous, not one. 2. None that understands, 3. None that seeks God, 4. All of them have gone out of the way.

5. Together become useless. V 12, They have all turned aside; They have together become unprofitable; There is none who does good, no, not one.” As some translation says that they are together become useless. This carries two ideas.

It is the basic thought of useless, but it is useless due to its corruption. It is useless because it's not useful anymore. It has

so deteriorated, it has so been corrupted, it's lost its significant use. The Hebrew equivalent, by the way, of the word "unprofitable"is used of milk that has gone sour. Milk that has gone sour is useless. The human race is rotten.

The human race has gone sour. It has been corrupted and consequently it is useless. It is as if like the branches without fruit, John 15. It is like salt without savour, Matthew chapter 7. Man is useless, he is worthless. He serves no divine purpose.

So, if you look with Paul to the X-ray and you read what he takes of the character of man, you find that man is evil, ignorant, rebellious, deviated, and useless to the purposes of God. The Greek term basically means he is good for nothing.

He is about as useless as the senseless laughter of a moron.

Psalm 14:3, They have all turned aside, They have together become corrupt; There is none who does good, No, not one. Here it adds that man is stinking, or filthy. He is like milk gone sour.

He is like food gone bad that is rancid and putrid and filthy and stinking and he has no value other than to be thrown away. So, in a very real sense, hell and eternal punishment reflects the discarding of useless human beings, useless to the purposes of God.

6. No one does good. V 12, They have all turned aside; They have together become unprofitable; There is none who does good, no, not one.” It is almost identical to the first one. In verse 10 it says there is none righteous, no not one.

In verse 12 it says there is none who does good, no not one. Basically, saying the same thing. Taking it a step further, there is not anyone who is good, so there is no one who does good. There is no real goodness. There is no eternal goodness.

There's no God-glorifying goodness. There's no genuine holiness. We are not saying that man does not do some human good, that there's not some relative good done on a human scale,

but ultimately it is not the goodness of God. It does not advance the kingdom. So, the sum of man's character is just very clear as you look at it. Man is bad, he is ignorant, he is rebellious, he is deviated, he is useless, and he cannot do anything but what is evil.

Now his character will inevitably manifest itself in his conversation. 7. Mouth is open Tomb. V 13, “Their throat is an open tomb; With their tongues they have practiced deceit”; “The poison of asps is under their lips”; This is the first place that he goes to show the demonstration of character.

Matthew 12:34-36, Brood of vipers! How can you, being evil, speak good things? For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. 35 A good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth good things, and an evil man out of the evil treasure brings forth evil things. 36 But I say to you that for every idle word men may speak, they will give account of it in the day of judgment. 37 For by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.”

Matthew 15:18-20, But those things which proceed out of the mouth come from the heart, and they defile a man. 19 For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies. 20 These are the things which defile a man, but to eat with unwashed hands does not defile a man.” So, the mouth is the first indicator of what is in the heart. That is exactly where Paul moves in verses ¹³ and 14. And he quotes from Psalms.

Psalm 5:9, For there is no faithfulness in their mouth; Their inward part is destruction; Their throat is an open tomb; They flatter with their tongue.

Psalm 140:3, They sharpen their tongues like a serpent;

The poison of asps is under their lips. Selah

Psalm 10:7, His mouth is full of cursing and deceit and oppression; Under his tongue is trouble and iniquity. In James chapter 3, we have very familiar examples we have seen. A bit in the horse's mouth to make the horse obey. A ship can be guided by a very small helm that turns the ship one way or another.

A small fire will light up the entire forest. A small thing like a tongue can have a great effect. A tongue among our members defiles the whole body. It sets on fire the course of nature and is set on fire of hell. The tongue can no man tame, it is an unruly evil full of deadly poison. The tongue manifests what's in the heart.

Proverbs 10:32, The lips of the righteous know what is acceptable, But the mouth of the wicked what is perverse.

Proverbs 15:2, The tongue of the wise uses knowledge rightly,

But the mouth of fools pours forth foolishness.

Proverbs 28:15, Like a roaring lion and a charging bear Is a wicked ruler over poor people. Like a master surgeon diagnosing the mouth and the throat, he begins down in the throat and proceeds out. V 13, “Their throat is an open tomb; With their tongues they have practiced deceit”; “The poison of asps is under their lips”;

The throat is an open grave. Now that's from Psalm 5:9. He is saying that the throat is to the heart as an open grave is to the corpse that is in it. When a body is laid in the ground, it

only makes sense to cover it. To leave the casket open and the grave open would only expose to all who came by the filth and the rot of decay, to say nothing of the stench. Paul says mankind is like a corpse rotting and it is through his throat that the stench comes to recognition by those around him.

No matter whether you see the throat as a tomb for burial or whether you see it as the place where the stench rises, the picture of Paul's words is vivid. Nothing can be more abominable than an open grave with a rotten body putting out its staggering and unbearable smell.

8. Tongue practiced deceit. V 13, “Their throat is an open tomb; With their tongues they have practiced deceit”; “The poison of asps is under their lips”; Greek word dolio is a word that has as a root idea a fishhook. You think you are going to bite on a healthy meal, and you are caught, and you die, becoming someone else's meal.

This is what Paul says about mankind. You take a man at his word, you trust a man at his word, you take him at face value, and you are hooked for the kill because men don't tell the truth.

Have you found that to be true in your business? Have you found that to be true in your relationships with unbelievers? It is true.

Psalm 57:4, My soul is among lions; I lie among the sons of men Who are set on fire, Whose teeth are spears and arrows, And their tongue a sharp sword.

Psalm 36:3, The words of his mouth are wickedness and deceit; He has ceased to be wise and to do good.

Psalm 52:2, Your tongue devises destruction, Like a sharp razor, working deceitfully. Isaiah 591-3, Behold, the Lord’s hand is not shortened, That it cannot save; Nor His ear heavy, That it cannot hear. 2 But your iniquities have separated you from your God; And your sins have hidden His face from you, So that He will not hear. 3 For your hands are defiled with blood, And your fingers with iniquity; Your lips have spoken lies, Your tongue has muttered perversity. Jeremiah saw the same manifestation of the sinfulness of man through his mouth.

Jeremiah 9:3-5, And like their bow they have bent their tongues for lies. They are not valiant for the truth on the earth. For they proceed from evil to evil, And they do not know Me,” says the Lord. 4 “Everyone take heed to his neighbour, And do not trust any brother; For every brother will utterly supplant, And every neighbour will walk with slanderers. 5 Everyone will deceive his neighbour, And will not speak the truth; They have taught their tongue to speak lies; They weary themselves to commit iniquity. That's true. People don't tell you the truth. They say whatever is expedient to gain their end, and that is a revelation of the filthy, rotten corpse inside. Man is evil. V 13, “Their throat is an open tomb; With their tongues they have practiced deceit”; “The poison of asps is under their lips”;

They seek to draw you near to lure you near and then to destroy you by releasing their concealed poison. Phenomena of asps, "The fangs of such a deadly snake ordinarily lie folded back in the upper jaw, but when the snake throws its head to strike, these hollow fangs drop down and when the snake bites the fangs press a sack of deadly poison hidden under the lips injecting venom into the victim."Their words may appear flattering and subtle, but then they strike.

Man is poisonous. David in this regard, 2 Samuel chapter 11. The incredible evening that Uriah spent when David wined and dined him. David was up on his roof, and he saw Bathsheba taking a sunbath. Man, he got really excited about this lady and figured since he was the king, he could have any lady he wanted. She was the one he wanted. He had a real problem with that area, by the way.

But the amazing part is here was David, God's king, and he brings Uriah, her husband, in and he wines him and dines him and leads him to believe he is his friend and leads him out to be slaughtered. Do you remember the woman with the flattering lips in Proverbs, who leads men down to Sheol, to death?

The worst kiss of venom in all of history was the kiss of Judas. Jesus called the Pharisees a generation or a brood of vipers because they were so poisonous to the people they infected. This is man. 9. Mouth is full of cursing.

We start at the throat, the tongue, the underside of the lips and then come to the outside, the mouth. V 14, “Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness.

Psalm 10:7, His mouth is full of cursing and deceit and oppression; Under his tongue is trouble and iniquity. Cursing and bitterness. Cursing is just that. To speak a curse, to speak evil against someone, to curse someone.

It is so common in our society. Cursing, filthy talk, one person toward another, cussing somebody out. 10. Mouth is full of bitterness. The word bitterness, pikria, means an extreme kind of wickedness that results in evil speaking against God and men.

The whole idea of cursing and bitterness is just foul, filthy, evil language toward one another.

Psalm 64:3, Who sharpen their tongue like a sword, And bend their bows to shoot their arrows—bitter words,

These are the words of hate and anger and violence. Foul, filthy talk, deceitful talk that rings people in under the guise of trust and then pumps the venom in and takes the victim. The words of bitterness, of anger that curse, the words of filth, the words of blasphemy, the words of pride, the words of lust, the lewd, lascivious gross talk of sex and fornication and all those things, the lies, the deceits, the destruction that comes out of the mouth of people are indicators of the depravity of man.

Like an open grave, the throat, the tongue, the lips, the mouth reveal the stench of a depraved heart. 11.Their feet swift to shed blood. V 15, “Their feet are swift to shed blood The final series of indictments. But now he moves to conduct.

From character to conversation to conduct. About the conduct of individuals and how it manifests the same sinfulness.

You don't have to be a genius to figure out that man is basically a murderous individual. We kill our own at a greater rate than any animal. We kill our own constantly. We are murderers, we are killers. Cannibalism, an aboriginal society, mass genocide etc.

So, peace doesn't solve the problem. Man will massacre man whether in peace or war. We live in a day today where we see this all around us. We see these mass murders. 1560 to 1614, It is said in history that Countess Erzsebet Bathory, Hungary, was accused of killing, 610 young girls systematically and had all their names written in her diary by her own handwriting.

Chong Seng Chung, who is a somewhat famous leader, a bandit really who gained control of the Chinese province of Szechuan, killed sometime between 1643 and 1648, 40 million people. Men kill themselves. Man is a murderer. And they're fast at it, shedding blood. That is the history of man. Don't come to me with any nonsense that man is good. He is not good. He is bad.

He is a killer. 12. Destruction and misery are in their ways. V 16, Destruction and misery are in their ways

They leave a trail of devastation, destruction. It is the devastation of unmitigated cruelty. Men are cruel. They don't just kill. They kill with a sense of cruelty. The word "misery,"can mean a lot of things. It can mean distress, suffering, wretchedness, but basically its abstract meaning is misery.

Man in his world leaves a swathe of devastation, destruction, massacre, and misery. There is unhappiness and misery. If you don't have murder, you have hate. Violence, bloodshed, devastation, misery mark all human history.

13. They do not know the way to Peace. V 17, And the way of peace they have not known.” If there is one thing the world never has is Peace. They never have peace. There is never peace in the world.

Jeremiah 6:14, They have also healed the hurt of My people slightly, Saying, ‘Peace, peace!’ When there is no peace.

Like the false prophets, there is no peace to the wicked. There's only violence and devastation and destruction and yet men keep talking about euphoria and utopia and the day of peace. When it's all going to finally end and everybody wants to know when it's going to happen, and of course it's never going to happen until Jesus Christ comes. Quarrels, hatred, fights, arguments, animosities, crimes, revolutions, wars.

Animosities, arguments, crimes, revolutions, and wars. So, Paul indicts man. What a creature man is. Sin has done this. Sin is a debt, a burden, a thief, a sickness, a leprosy, a plague, a poison, a serpent, a sting, everything that man hates. It is a load of curses and calamities beneath whose crushing, most intolerable pressure the whole creation groans.

Who breaks the hearts of parents? Who brings old men's grey hairs with sorrow to the grave? Who, by a more hideous metamorphosis than an Ovid even fancy, changes gentle children into vipers, tender mothers into monsters, and their fathers into worse than Herods, the murderers of their own innocent children?

Who casts the apple of discord on household hearts?

Who lights the torch of war and bears it blazing over trembling lands? Who, by divisions in the church, rends Christ's seamless robe? It is sin. Who is this Delilah that sings the Nazarite asleep and delivers up the strength of God into the hands of the uncircumcised?

Who, winning smiles on her face, honey flattery on her tongue, stands in the door to offer the sacred rites of hospitality, and when suspicion sleeps, treacherously pierces our temples with a nail? Who turns the soft and gentlest heart to stone?

It is sin. The motive. Any good prosecutor is going to come up with a motive. V 18, “There is no fear of God before their eyes.” The key to the whole element of man's sinfulness.

Psalm 36:1, An oracle within my heart concerning the transgression of the wicked: There is no fear of God before his eyes. That's man's problem.

The reason man is so abandoned to sin is because he does not fear God. He does not fear God.

Fearing God has both a positive and a negative element and you have to understand both, or you won't understand this.

• Fearing God on the positive side means to worship and to be in awe of God.
• Fear of God on the negative side means to be afraid of Him.

When you hear people talk about fearing God simply being the positive, they have left out a very important motive. There must be a healthy respect for God's chastening power. When men don't fear God's punishment, they will abandon themselves to sinfulness. That's why people become atheists, not because it is logical but because it is the way they can escape their guilt by deciding there is no God, and no consequence. There's no fear of God because there is no God, they conclude.

Proverbs 9:10, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, And the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding. You will never even begin to be wise unless you fear God.

Proverbs 16:6, In mercy and truth Atonement is provided for iniquity; And by the fear of the Lord one departs from evil.

By the fear of the Lord men depart from evil. Men depart from evil when they fear God. Why do you think throughout the Old Testament God slew people? Why do you think He punished sin with death? Why do you think Ananias and Sapphira fell dead in front of the church?

In order that men might fear God and know that if they did not live-in righteousness, they themselves would suffer the same fate. That is why it tells us in 2 Corinthians 10th chapter that these things happen for examples unto us.

All throughout the Old Testament we had these tremendous acts of God where He moves in destruction and devastation and brings death upon individuals. At first it seems to us a somewhat whimsical, arbitrary until we find out that God is doing it so that we would fear Him.

Cornelius was a devout man who feared God, and so he was a prime candidate for salvation. But unless God's Spirit has worked in the heart, men do not fear God. They have no respect for His holiness, they have no respect for His person,

they have no respect for His work, they have no respect for His will, they have no respect for His power. It is reverential respect but there is a certain amount of panic and fright in it. There must be a sense of knowing that if I violate God, there are consequences.

Fearing like that is the controller of all behaviour. Our behaviour is controlled basically because we fear consequences. Example: How you drive when there is a camera? The same is true with God. There are times when we respond to God out of the pure love of our hearts. There are times when we must respond to God out of the fear of His chastening power.

Where men have neither, they do not desire God's glory and they do not fear God's punishment, they have no control over their sinfulness. The key thing in all human behaviour is to live to the glory of God where you recognize Him, and you honour Him, and you live in a healthy fear of what may happen when you disobey.

Christians living even under grace as well because it says in Hebrews that whom the Lord loves He chastens, and every son He scourges. We must accept God as God, and worship and obey and fear the consequence of our disobedience.

The Old Testament is literally filled with things to force us to that attitude. God was trying to make His people in the Old Testament fear Him. A common thread in the Old Testament.

• God threw Adam and Eve out of the garden.
• God drowned the whole world.
• God turned Lot's wife into a pillar of salt.
• God drowned the entire Egyptian army.
• God sent snakes to bite the Israelites.
• God swallowed Korah, Dathan and Abiram.
• God killed Nadab and Abihu.
• God sent fire from heaven at the call of Elijah and consumed a hundred soldiers.
• God took the life of Eli and his sons, Hophni and Phinehas.
• God killed Absalom, David's rebellious son.
• God used Samson to slaughter thousands and thousands of the Philistines. He repeatedly demanded death.

Remember the illustration Luke 13? When the people came to Jesus and they said, There were 18 people walking down the street and a tower fell on them and killed them all. Were these people worse sinners than everybody else?"

What did Jesus say? "You better shape up or the same thing will happen to you."

What was Jesus saying? The answer to the question was, this is what everybody deserves, and it ought to be a warning to you to make sure your life is right. Then they said that what about all those Galileans who went down to the temple during the time of the sacrifice, and they went in there and they were offering their sacrifice and Pilate sent some men in slaughtered them, cut them up right there while they were worshiping God, and their blood was mixed with the blood of the sacrifice.

How would God let that happen? Jesus’ answer to them was, "You better shape up or the same thing will happen to you."

What was God trying to tell them? Jesus was trying to put some fear in them,.

Healthy fear. The world has no fear of God. The fear of man prevents them from doing many things from which they are not restrained by the fear of God. They love not His character, not rendering to it that veneration which is due. They respect not His authority. Such is the state of human nature while the heart is unchanged.

So, you see the sinfulness of man. He is arraigned, he is indicted. His motive is exposed.

The verdict

V 19, Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God. Now it starts out in that verse by saying, whatever things the law says it says to them that are under the law.

Who are they?

Who is under the law? Everyone, everyone's under the law. The law here is the opposite of being under grace. People who are under grace are the redeemed people. People who are under law are the unredeemed.

Anybody unredeemed is under obligation to justify himself by keeping the whole law, right? Man’s only hope. Of course, Man cannot do it. But the whole world is under obligation to the law of God. That is why God can ultimately condemn them.

• The Jew is under obligation to the written law.
• The Gentile is under obligation to the law written in his heart and his conscience.

Romans 2:11-15, For there is no partiality with God. 12 For as many as have sinned without law will also perish without law, and as many as have sinned in the law will be judged by the law 13 (for not the hearers of the law are just in the sight of God, but the doers of the law will be justified; 14 for when Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do the things in the law, these, although not having the law, are a law to themselves, 15 who show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and between themselves their thoughts accusing or else excusing them).

The Jews have the written law, written externally. The Gentiles have the written law, written internally. All are under the law. So, he is really taking everybody.

All unregenerate people are under the law of God. Everybody in the world is obligated to the law of God. Everybody who lives on the face of the earth is obligated to God's standards.

• God is the creator,
• God is the sustainer,
• God is the authority in the universe,
• He is the sovereign,
• He is the Lord,
• He calls the shots,
• He makes the rules, and every human being living on the face of the earth is under obligation to that law.

The verdict then is since every man in the world is under obligation to the law and every man in the world is evil, every mouth is stopped.

What does that mean? No defence. There's nothing to say to defend yourself. The only response is dead silence. Every mouth is stopped.

The defence rests before the defence says anything because there is no defence. It is a dramatic fearful scene, reminiscent of the same silence that occurred in Revelation chapter 8 when the awesome judgment began to fall. The effect of overwhelming evidence is utter silence. There's nothing to say.

Are you going to stand up and defend men? No, no, man doesn't sin with his mouth, oh no, man is not murderous, man is not evil, he's not deceitful. Therefore, the verdict: All the world stands guilty before God. And so, Paul has come all the way to the climax of his statement on sin. Everybody is guilty.

Some of those people living under the law, they might have lived up to the law.

Romans 3:20, "By the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in His sight,”

The only thing the law can do is show you sin. There's nobody that's going to make it by keeping the law. Every man on the face of the earth is in obligation to keep God's law but nobody on the face of the earth can do it.

Now that puts man in an impossible situation.

He is an utter sinner. He is obligated to keep God's law and he can't. That is the human dilemma.

The solution? Next week. Romans 3:3:21 onwards. The sinfulness of man is proven every which way, including by Scripture.

Psalm 130:3, If You, Lord, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand? Nobody could.

The whole world is guilty, everyone is silent, there's nothing to say. We are all under obligation to God's law because He is the sovereign and none of us can keep the deeds of the law. All the law can do is show us our evil and it leaves us stuck in that position. No man is living a righteous life. That's clear.

Galatians 3:22, But the Scripture has confined all under sin, that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe.

The Scripture concludes all under sin so that in your hopelessness you will believe in Jesus Christ and take Him in. God can do what the law could never do, what you in your flesh could never do.

Conclusion.

In Greek mythology there was a king of the Mezentius. Mezentius was known by his contemporaries as a detestable, cruel, fearful man. It is said by the ancients that no torture which entered into his cruel mind was too horrible to gratify his vengeance. He would do anything.

One of his methods of punishment was hard to imagine. He would tie a living person to a dead person, hand to hand, face to face, lip to lip, and leave the person alive in that wretched condition, until finally he died in that terrible embrace.

Virgil gives us an interesting account of this practice in the Aeneid so we can somewhat substantiate it historically. Some people even believe it is to that very cruel practice to which the apostle Paul refers in Romans 7 when he says, "O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death,"seeing himself as a new living creature in Christ and yet face-to-face with that old sinful part of him.

Now whether in Romans 7 Paul had in mind this incredible practice, we don't really know. But we do know that when he

cried out, “O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death,” he was crying for deliverance from sin. Paul was crying for deliverance from the unholy and impure passions and appetites which had ruled his body for so long and still had a residual power in some cases over him. Paul saw sin as a foul, polluting reality, offensive, to be something that you deeply desired to get rid of.

Would you bow your knees and see where you are in your life and surrender to God and live in the fear of God rest of your life?