9 What shall we conclude then? Are we any better? Not at all! We have already made the charge that Jews and Gentiles alike are all under sin. 10 As it is written:
“There is no one righteous, not even one;
11 there is no one who understands,
no one who seeks God.
12 All have turned away,
they have together become worthless;
there is no one who does good,
not even one.”
13 “Their throats are open graves;
their tongues practice deceit.”
“The poison of vipers is on their lips.”
14 “Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness.”
15 “Their feet are swift to shed blood;
16 ruin and misery mark their ways,
17 and the way of peace they do not know.”
18 “There is no fear of God before their eyes.”
11 there is no one who understands,
no one who seeks God.
12 All have turned away,
they have together become worthless;
there is no one who does good,
not even one.”
13 “Their throats are open graves;
their tongues practice deceit.”
“The poison of vipers is on their lips.”
14 “Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness.”
15 “Their feet are swift to shed blood;
16 ruin and misery mark their ways,
17 and the way of peace they do not know.”
18 “There is no fear of God before their eyes.”
We really need to understand the bad news before we can receive the good news. After all, there's no need for a Saviour if we don't understand our need to be saved.
And here Paul lays it out on the line, man's absolute corruption.
He's already condemned Gentiles as sinners, he's already condemned the Jew as sinners, and here, just to make it clear, he says that every one is a sinner. Every. single. person.
Even Christians are sinners. In fact, Christians are simply people that recognize just how bad we really are and how desperately we need a Saviour.
V10-18 are a string of OT quotes, reiterating the fact that this is not a new thought. Ever since the fall, man has always been and will always be sinners.
We are all guilty, every one of us.
What are we guilty of?
We're all evil (v10), we're all ignorant of what good even is (11a), we've rebelled against God and turned away from Him (11b), we are so corrupt that we're as useless as food gone rancid (12a) , we are incapable of doing anything truly godly (v12b). Yes, we can do good from a human perspective, but not with the motive of giving glory to God.
How is this evil revealed?
Through our mouth, our throats (13a). MacArthur puts it bluntly.... The sum of what he's saying, very simply, is man's soul is dead as Paul said in Ephesians 2, dead in trespasses and sin, and the putrid stinking decaying corpse emits a foul and filthy odor that comes through the throat in the form of words.
And from our throats to our tongue which is deceitful (13b).
And from out tongue to our lips which are like poison (13c).
And finally out of the mouth comes cursing and bitterness - words of hate, anger, pride (14).
Our evil and sinfulness is also revealed in our conduct.
Men are killers, ever since Cain and Abel (v15). MacArthur shared a stat (not sure where he got it) that since 1900 in the US, there have been more people killed than have died in all the wars in the history of the States. Whether in peacetime or in war, men kill each other.
Mankind leaves in his path a trail of destruction, devastation, massacre and misery (v16).
No, not everyone kills. We are not all as bad as we possibly could be. But none of us are good. None of us do good for the sake of glorifying God. Not in our own power.
We do not know peace (v17). Oh, we talk about wanting world peace. But there is none and never will be.
Why? Why all this evil?
The answer is in v18. “There is no fear of God before their eyes.”
Quoting from Psalm 36:1 An oracle is within my heart concerning the sinfulness of the wicked: There is no fear of God before his eyes.
The reason man is so abandoned to sin is because he does not fear God. He does not fear God. And 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. And fear of God on the negative side means to be afraid of Him. And when you hear people talk about fearing God simply being the positive, they've left out a very important motive. There must be a healthy respect for God's chastening power. And when men don't fear God's punishment, they will abandon themselves to sinfulness....
And conversely, you see, that is why Proverbs 9;10 says, "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of...what?...of wisdom." You will never even begin to be wise unless you fear God. By the fear of the Lord, it says in Proverbs 16:6, a great statement, by the fear of the Lord men depart from evil. You see, 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. And that's why it tells us in Corinthians that these things happen for examples unto us. You remember our study of Romans 2 when we went into that?
All throughout the Old Testament we had these tremendous acts of God where He moves in destruction and devastation and brings death upon individuals. And at first it seems to us a somewhat whimsical, somewhat arbitrary until we find out that God is doing it so that we would fear Him. It was said of Cornelius that he 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...
There has to be a sense of knowing that if I violate God there are consequences. And fearing like that is the controller of all behavior. I mean, we all do that. We all are, our behavior is controlled basically because we fear consequences. For example, maybe you're mature enough spiritually that you don't need that, you'll just do everything right out of pure love, and that would be the epitome of spirituality. But in my own life, I confess to you that there are sins that I do not commit, there are temptations I do not fall to not because I'm so utterly holy that they don't really push me very far, but because I'm fearful that God will retaliate as He has a right to retaliate and I'd really rather not have the consequences. I mean, some of you may drive 35 in the 35 zone just because you're sanctimonious, others of you may be doing it looking in your rear view mirror because you don't want a ticket. Either way, if it works its work on you, it's good.
The same is true with God. There are times when we respond to God out of the pure love of our hearts. And there are times when we must respond to God out of the fear of His chastening power. And 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. Do you see that? That's why we've said to you repeatedly for years that the key thing in all of human behavior is to live to the glory of God where you recognize Him and you honor Him and you live in a healthy fear of what may happen when you disobey. And I'm talking about Christians living even under grace because it says in Hebrews that whom the Lord loves, He...what?...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. And that's a common thread in the Old Testament. Just go through the Old Testament and see what God did to make the people fear Him. He turned Lot's wife into a pillar of salt. He threw Adam and Eve out of the garden. He drowned the whole world, that ought to be some kind of lesson. He sent snakes to bite the Israelites. He swallowed Korah, Dathan and Abiram, He killed Nadab and Abihu, He sent fire from heaven at the call of Elijah and consumed a hundred soldiers. He sent a bear to tear up forty little children. He drowned the entire Egyptian army. He took the life of Eli and his sons, Hophni and Phinehas. He killed Absalom, David's rebellious son. He used Samson to slaughter thousands and thousands of the Philistines. He repeatedly demanded death.
And you remember the illustration I gave you in the thirteenth chapter of Luke? When the people came to Jesus and they said, "You know, we don't understand why happened the other day. 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?" And you remember what Jesus said? "You better shape up or the same thing will happen to you." What was He 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.
We need to see our sin the way God sees our sin before we can see our need for a Saviour.
MacArthur tells a vile story that really helped me see this perspective.
In Greek mythology there was a king of the Etruscans called Mezentius who was absolutely cruel - there was no torture or punishment too vile for him to inflict on a man. One such punishments gives us a perfect illustration for this topic. He would tie a living person to a dead person - face to face, lip to lip and leave that person alive in that excruciating and vile condition until he eventually died in death's embrace.
And 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 or not in Romans 7 Paul actually 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. He was crying for deliverance from the unholy and impure passions and appetites which had ruled his body for so long and would 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.
Now if sin is such a fearful and horrifying thing to the Apostle Paul, imagine what it is to God Himself who is utterly and totally holy. If you'd like to know what God feels about sin, and how He reacts to it and how He describes it, all you need do is look at Romans chapter 3 and the passage we just read. For in this passage more than any other single passage in the Scripture, we have the bringing together of the statements of God regarding the sin of man. It is a composite divine definition and description of the sinfulness of man and his utter inability to do anything about it.
Tomorrow's scripture focus: Romans 3:19-20
1 comment:
Yeeks, that is a vile story about the Etruscan king. Blech. Interesting point, however.
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