After Darkness, Light - [Romans 3]

I'm quite confident that people love the idea that God knows everything, God's omniscient.

But I'm not so sure they like it that He's immutably omniscient.

It would be one thing to think, well, God knows everything, but those secret things that I've done, maybe

He wasn't omniscient at that time. The things that you've done are thought, skeletons that are in each of your closets and mine.

Maybe God wasn't on the throne at that particular moment. Maybe He wasn't omniscient then.

But the thing is, He knows everything. He's never learned anything. He knows every person, and on Judgment Day, knowing the skeletons we have in our closets and the sins we have committed, who will stand?

God is holy, and God is immutably holy. He's always holy.

So how do we sinful people stand before a thrice holy

God? How do we get rid of our own sins? How much work do we have to do to somehow make atonement?

Let's turn our Bibles to Romans chapter 3 and find out that even though we were sinful,

God's grace is greater. Romans chapter 3, chapter by chapter through the book of Romans, we're a little faster in Romans than we were in 1

Corinthians, 16 weeks, 16 chapters. Maybe my all -time favorite chapter, but I want to reserve that maybe for in two weeks because I think

Romans 5 might be my favorite. But here we come to the centerpiece of Christianity, both the bad news and the good news, and if the bad news isn't that bad, the good news isn't, well, that good.

F .F. Bruce said, there's no telling what may happen when people begin to study the book of Romans.

There's no telling what may happen. It's been my prayer that if there are people here today who do not have their sins forgiven, who think they're hiding underneath their baptism, they're being good, they're religiosity, done more good than bad, that I want

God to expose you to your need of righteousness and then God would grant you the righteousness found in Christ Jesus alone.

And if you're a Christian today, my prayer has been for you that you'd be strengthened. Romans 16 says Christians get strengthened with the gospel.

The gospel isn't something, well, we already know all that. Jesus died on the cross and was raised from the dead, and we moved past it.

No, the gospel is what strengthens Christians, and I don't know if you have big trials in your life, but if you have big trials, you need a big view of God, don't you?

If you have small trials, okay, a little kind of pet God might work, but if you have a large trial, and if you don't have one now, there would be one coming soon, there will be one.

You need a big view of God. What's happened in Romans so far? Chapter 1, 2, and most of 3 is all about men and women having no righteousness before God, have nothing to offer

God except sin and a lot of it. And what Paul is trying to do is to say, until you realize your problem, you don't seek a remedy.

You don't go to the doctor when you're feeling well, and the great physician, you think you're yourself, I have no need of him until you realize that whether I'm a

Gentile, chapter 1, I need righteousness, or if I'm a chosen person of God, that is to say, chosen nation of God person, a

Jew, you need righteousness as well. Chapter 3, our outline for today, let me give you three no's,

N -O, three no's that I want to try to, by the words power, weld to your mind, fuse to your mind, attach to your mind so you don't forget your sin, and then the savior of that sin.

Three no's, it'll be beneficial for you to understand the book of Romans, chapter 3.

Weld number 1, no objection against God holds water. That is to say, all objections that man gives to God about life and death, heaven and hell,

God's truth, are all smoke screens. Specifically, let's look at Romans chapter 3, 1 through 8,

Paul is continuing to talk to the Jewish person, and he does it by a very lively style. How do you write in such a way to engage the audience and have the audience kind of sit on your shoulder, listening to you?

And so he's writing primarily to Gentiles, and so how do you get Gentiles to be engaged when Paul's addressing

Jews? He uses this kind of dialogue, it's actually called a diatribe, you'll see lots of questions, lots of answers, and Paul is anticipating

Jewish objections, and then he's annihilating those objections. You can just think for a second, if you're

Jewish and you say to yourself, huh, I've been circumcised, that was Romans chapter 2, I'm in the nation of God.

I've been chosen by God, out of all the nations, God has chosen us, and people hide behind their nationality.

People hide behind other things too, don't they? They hide behind religious stuff. I hope no one here hides behind their religiosity and says, you know, on Judgment Day when

I stand before God, I'll hide under my baptism. I was a member, my parents attended the church,

I went to Awana, I got that award in Awana, and we cloak ourselves with religiosity, and Paul wants to expose that.

Verse 1, then what advantage has the Jew? Or what is the value of circumcision?

See these rhetorical questions? What advantage do I have for being a Jew? If you just annihilated my

Jewishness as a means to please God in chapter 2, then what advantage has the

Jew? Paul, you're undervaluing our heritage. Now, there's a good heritage as a nation we're chosen, but each individual

Jew has to stand before God on his or her own merits, and we know those merits are sinful, so they need righteousness found from God.

What advantage has the Jew? Specifically, you know, all those people that run around and worship trees and stuff, those

Gentiles and those really bad people in chapter 1, you mean we're no better than they are?

There's no distinction. Paul, you're smudging and blurring the lines between Jews and Gentiles, how could you?

What's the benefit of circumcision? Verse 2, much in every way, great.

To begin with, the Jews were entrusted with the oracles of God.

The Jews were the ones who received the Bible, definite article, the Old Testament, the channel for the truth of God, when

God speaks, he spoke through one nation, the Jews. That's an advantage.

And now just when you start to question God, it's like when people say, okay God, if you're all powerful and all good, why is there suffering in the world?

Somehow bringing God to the bar of justice, to the dock in the courtroom. That kind of perverted thinking is seen here as Paul unravels the

Jewish questioner. What if some were unfaithful?

Does their faithlessness nullify the faithfulness of God? God chose the

Jews. Now the Jews are being unfaithful. So I guess God chooses people and then they're unfaithful,

God really didn't choose rightly, did he? He didn't follow up on his promise. He didn't follow up all the way to the end.

How come the Jewish people have failed from their high spot and still we insist that God's faithful?

So you're running into bad ground when you start questioning God like that. The people are saying, you know what,

God made a promise to the Jews and I'm included whether I believe or not. You have to be careful when you talk like that.

What does Paul say? This is the toughest connotation of impossibility found in the

Bible, by no means, no way. Romans chapter 3 verse 4, by no means, you can't talk like that.

You're going to say God's unfaithful because some Jewish people don't believe? By no means. Anybody here has the

King James Version that says what? God forbid. Let God be true.

Do you notice in your text? Let God be true though everyone were a liar.

And then Paul to the Jews quotes Psalm 51 as it is written, as it stands written.

I want you to think properly, Paul says to the Jewish people, away with such a thought. Why? That you,

God, may be justified in your words and prevail when you are judged.

Verse 5, you can see how this logic keeps going. The Jewish interlocutor says, but if our unrighteousness serves to show the righteousness of God, what should we say?

Oh, I know what we'll do. Let's cut ourselves so we can show everyone how great our body heals itself.

You know, the body is a wonderful thing and it can heal itself and so let's just make a lot of lacerations on our body so we can go around and say, look how our body heals itself.

What they're doing here is not that, but it's similar logic. Let's see. God judges sin.

Let's sin a lot so God shows his judgment of sin. That'll work. God likes to show his judgment.

We like to sin, match made in heaven. God is unrighteous to inflict wrath on us.

By the way, this shouldn't even be talked like, you shouldn't even talk like this. I speak in a human way because that's not a divine way.

It's a fallen way. It's a sinful way. You ought not to talk that way. I'll sin a lot so God judges that God's put on display for his judgment.

That's the wrong way to talk. That's how a human talks. I'll be unfaithful so God shows his faithfulness.

Fallen man argues that way. Speaking in human terms. Verse six, he says the same thing again.

By no means. Banish the thought, God forbid, for then how could God judge the world?

The Jews knew that God would judge the world one day, and they knew that judgment would be just judgment.

So how can God be a just judge if he's not a just judge to the Jews? He justly judges the world, but not the

Jews. Paul says, no way. How would he be fit to judge the world? Chapter 3, verse 7, it says in Romans 3, but if through my lie

God's truth abounds to his glory, see the same kind of logic. Why am

I still being condemned as a sinner? Hey, I lie a lot. God truthfully judges, helps out

God to show himself. This is ridiculous thinking. This is wrong thinking. I'll do evil so good might come.

It's wrong thinking. And why not, verse 8, do evil that good may come?

Now, Paul cuts to the chase, and listen to how firm he is. As some people slanderously charge us with saying, no explanation, their condemnation is just.

You want to sin freely so God can show himself? That's absurd. And Paul, with a machete, just cuts it down.

Their condemnation's just. Hack that thing down. He doesn't even stoop to answer that false accusation.

Number 2, well, number 2 to help you understand Romans 3, the first one is no objection can hold water before God.

Number 2 found in Romans 3, verses 9 through 20, no one keeps all of God's law.

No one keeps all of God's law, not Jew, not Gentile, not you, not me.

Still, it's dark here, it's foreboding, it's terrifying. We're not going to get really any good news until verse 21.

Verse 9, see the questions again? What then? Are we Jews any better off?

No, not at all. Individually, no, you're not any better, because you need a righteousness from outside yourself.

For we have already charged that all, charge is a legal word, it's a court word. We're already charged,

I charge you, with sin. Both Jews and Greeks are under sin.

Under sin means dominated by sin. Like a straitjacket's put on you, you can't get out of it.

You're under someone's control, you can't get out. Jews and Gentiles are under sin.

Pagans, religious people. People who worship their ancestors and Baptists.

Both are sinful. How many people are sinners? Everyone. How many people are righteous?

No one. They're under sin. Now, if you're a Jew, here's what you should do right now. You know what,

Paul, that's all fine and dandy, you're an apostle, but show me the Bible. Why don't you prove it to me from the Bible? And you know exactly, that is what

Paul does. Verses 10 through 9, 18. If you look at your Bible, you should see a lot of capitals maybe if you use

NAS. If you use ESV, you should see it set apart somehow. These are all quotes from the

Old Testament. Paul is going to say, okay, Jew, you want me to show you that you're personally sinful even though there are national promises for Israel.

And this doesn't just go for the Jews, this goes for all of us. This is your resume. I know a lot about you and you know a lot about me.

Romans chapter 3, verses 10 through 18. All kinds of quotes from the Old Testament and it's very fascinating.

Lots of people running around today. I'm glad for their evangelistic zeal. They say, the way to evangelize is to use the

Ten Commandments found in Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy 5. You know what, Paul does use the law. But he doesn't use the

Ten Commandments, he doesn't use the Decalogue, he doesn't use anything from the Pentateuch. He uses things from the prophets and from the

Psalms. He uses the law. This is God's standard reflecting his holy nature, but he never uses the

Ten Commandments. Well, if you want to use the Ten Commandments, I guess you can. But Paul doesn't here.

Jesus uses some of the Ten Commandments. But I find it fascinating here, he uses everything practically but the

Ten Commandments. The law shows God's standard, whether that's found in the

Old Testament or New Testament. Whether that's found in wisdom books, the Psalms, or the

Pentateuch. Verse 10, okay, Jew, you want proof? As it stands written and always is written.

That's the tense there in Romans 3 .10. None is righteous.

That's the whole point. We need to look to a Savior because we have no righteouses. None is righteous, no, not one.

Quoting from Psalm 14, some maybe think from Ecclesiastes. No one is righteous.

Friends, you ought to believe in the doctrine of total depravity, utter inability, spiritual corruptness.

I like wholly depraved better than totally. We're not as bad as we could be. But every one of our faculties, our mind, our soul, our will, emotions, the fall has totally affected us, wholly affected us.

We can't commend ourselves to God because there's not a righteous man on earth who continually does good and never sins.

A Russian poet said something that helps me understand depravity better.

He said this, I don't know what the heart of a bad man is like, but I do know what the heart of a good man is like, and it's terrible.

Adam's fall, we sinned all. He goes on, no one understands, again, quoting the

Old Testament, Psalm 14, Psalm 53, no one seeks for God. The word understands, a fascinating one.

It's nobody can figure out how to put the puzzle together to figure out how to save themselves. You have a big puzzle on the table.

Probably now you play puzzles on your iPad, as far as I know, move that piece over there for the kids. How do you figure out the puzzle of getting rid of your sins?

Would be one thing if you say, I made a resolution, I'll never sin again in the future, but there's hell to pay for the sins you've already committed.

How do I unsolve this puzzle? It's like the finger puzzle where you try to pull yourself out, you can't get out.

That's what it means, no one can understand. You see the text, no one seeks for God.

Friends, listen very carefully, false religions aren't trying to find God, they're trying to run from God, they're trying to escape

God. They're trying to figure out a way that they can live with a conscience and seek creation and say, you know what,

I can't live like this, so I need to have smoke, and bells, and whistles, and things to do, and religious things.

It's an escape, because no one seeks after God. No wonder

Jesus says in John 6, no one can come to me unless the Father who sent me what? Draws him.

People say, well, I'm going to take a comparative religion class. You might just call it this instead, this will be more truthful. I'm going to take a religious fugitive class, because all these religions have one thing in common.

How do we flee from the wrath of God? How do we flee from the idea of God? Remember when

Adam sinned? Adam, where are you? Genesis 3.

Why do you say that? Because after you sin and you realize you're sinful and you know how holy God is, you don't seek after him, you want to run from him.

Where are you? And then religion is what? Just one more illustration of fig leaves trying to cover sin.

That's why it's so brilliant and so wonderful and so great of God when you read then in Luke 19 of Jesus, the

Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost. That's why seeker -sensitive services are a big farce, because people aren't seeking

God, only God seeks. That's why Ezekiel 34, speaking of God, says, behold, he's the great shepherd.

I myself will search for my sheep and seek them out. Well, our resume is the same as the

Jews here in verse 12. All have turned aside, Romans 3. All have been so blinded by sin, they've turned aside.

It's used of a camel getting off the caravan path, getting stuck down in some sand dune.

It's used of an arm that's been dislocated. It's been used of a soldier who says, I'm not going to follow you,

I'm AWOL. Every person, do you know it? Not one, not even one, all have turned aside.

And then you ask me, do I believe in ecumenical ventures? The answer is yes. Verse 12, together they have all become worthless.

No one does good. Yeah, but maybe Mother Teresa, not even one. Maybe Billy Graham, not even one.

Together they have become worthless. That word worthless just means people have deliberately become what the

Arabics have called sour milk. That's the word there, useless, unprofitable.

It's good for nothing. And if you know someone's heart by what comes out of their mouth, verse 13 says, their throat is an open grave.

Now, just imagine yourself in the Middle East, and it's 110 degrees, and you put a dead body in a tomb.

You seal it for the respect of the body, but you also seal it so the noxious gases don't come out.

And you can tell people are sinful for lots of reasons, but one of the main reasons is because out of their mouths come putrid fumes revealing their heart.

Howe said, emitting the noisome exhalations of a putrid heart. And it's not just once in a while, sadly, these airborne pathogens just keep coming out.

The text in the Greek is an imperfect tense. With their tongues, they keep on deceiving over, and over, and over, and over, and like a cobra that's got a piece, like a thing under it that has a container bag full of poison, so too do we.

Verse 14, their mouth is full of curses. That isn't four -letter words. That's the opposite of a blessing.

I saw someone yesterday said, God bless you. What comes out of the mouth of sinful people, God curse you.

And you know our society is full of this today, bitterness. The word for bitter in Greek is just what it sounds like.

Just take a lemon when you get home and don't even peel it. Just bite into it as hard as you can and then watch your face and it's picria.

That's what comes out of our mouths. Our lifestyle, verse 15, their feet are swift to shed blood.

As one commentator said, at least animals, when they kill, they eat what they kill.

We just like to kill, and in their paths are, verse 16, ruin and misery.

The picture of Dorian Gray with Oscar Wilde, finally sin is seen. Where man goes, sin follows because man is sinful.

Verse 17, in the way of peace they have not known. I read this week that in the last 4 ,000 years of human history, there have been but 286 years of peace despite more than 8 ,000 peace treaties.

No wonder because Isaiah says there's no peace for the wicked. Well, those are all effects.

You want to know what the cause is? Verse 18, here's the root cause of why people sin. There is no fear of God before their eyes,

Psalm 36. Why does Paul go to these great lengths to talk like this?

We see the answer in verse 19. Now, we know that whatever the law says, he's speaking about all the

Old Testament there, the things that he just quoted, says it speaks to those who are under the law, what's the purpose?

So that every mouth may be stopped and the whole world may be held accountable to God, so that every mouth may be closed.

When you evangelize, that is your goal. So the person on the other end says,

I'm guilty, I have no defense. What's true of my life, true in the

Bible. What the Bible says, I am. I have no excuse. I'm not going to say it's a twinkie defense, a spank when

I was a kid. There could be a thousand excuses people use now.

It's true. Everything that you say there, God, is true of me. And by the way, until you do that, you have no need to have a savior, kind of a buddy

Jesus to come along with you. What you need to do is say, sir,

I'm completely guilty. This language is you're at the bar of justice in a courtroom and God shows you who you are, as it were, and you just have to say yes.

When I get pulled over by the police, it doesn't happen that often, but when I do, I'm telling you what I do every single time.

Mark it well. Hands at the 10 and 2 position. Officer comes up, male or female, and roll down your window, yes, sir or yes, ma 'am.

Did you know you were going 49 in a 20 zone? Officer, I could give you all kinds of excuses, but I'm completely guilty.

They don't give me the ticket. Why? Because people don't say that today.

I'm guilty. I did it all. I'm not going to say I was on the phone or this, that, or the other.

I didn't know. I'm totally guilty. That's why when you go to people, they don't know the gravity and the depth of their sin.

It does no good to say, come to Jesus and he'll fix your marriage. Come to Jesus and you'll have a wonderful life.

God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life. No, when you hear the sound of silence, that's when you show them who

Jesus is. That's what Paul's doing here. Martin Lloyd -Jones says, you do not begin to be a

Christian until your mouth is shut, is stopped, and you are speechless and have nothing to say. You put up your arguments and produce all your righteousness, then the law speaks, and it withers to nothing.

It becomes filthy rags and dung, and you have nothing to say. Reminds me of Job before God.

Behold, I am insignificant. What can I reply to you? I lay my hand on my mouth.

Verse 20, for by works of the law, no human being, not

Jew, not Gentile, not boy, not girl, not man or woman, not anybody here, will be justified, declared righteous before God's court in his sight.

Oh, you might be righteous in front of other people. Might not be as bad as your friends. Might not be as bad as people on Jerry Springer, but in God's sight, the one that it counts for, on that day you'll die, and you surely will die, since through the law comes knowledge of sin.

You try to do good things in the law, and the only thing that does you is to show you how far you fall short.

It's not the purpose of the law to save anybody. It's the purpose of God's law, whether it's love

God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and the neighbor as yourself, or any other law of God so that you say,

I'm corrupt, I'm defiled, I'm depraved, and I deserve to go to hell. It's exactly what

Paul is trying to get you to admit. And you know what? If God was only just, that's where it would end.

For the angels, no plan B, no salvation. But now the very next word, it is an and, and God killed them all.

It isn't therefore, therefore God wiped them out. Flood of fire. We move to the next word, and it's a great word found in verse 21, which gives us the third no that I'd like to try to weld to your mind through Romans 3.

No objection holds water, no one keeps all of God's law. And number three, no one but God could save sinners.

Finally, finally, we have some good news here. We don't deserve it, but God's gracious, God's merciful.

I went to Warwick Castle in England. Anybody been to Warwick Castle in England? What do, at least a man with his young boy at the time, what do they want to do?

We want to go down past the torture chamber. That one thing I thought was interesting, it's a big helmet that goes on your face, and it sticks a big thing in your tongue.

And if you gossiped and slandered, you'd have to wear that for a few days. Wow. And you go past all of these instruments of torture, and then you go to the dungeon.

And I'm talking, it was a black dungeon, a dark dungeon, and you imagine the king could just say, put the person in the dungeon for the next 30 years, they're never going to get out.

It was scary, I thought I would freak out in there. But what must

I think if I'm in the dungeon, and it's 20 years later, and all of a sudden the light cracks a little bit, it's blinding my eyes because I'm not used to the light, and someone comes in and says, you're free.

That's this kind of language. Christ does for sinful man and woman what they can't do for themselves.

That's why if you come here on Sunday, I'm going to talk about Jesus. And if you're bored with that, and you want stories, I don't know what to tell you.

It's like Adoniram Judson, after 30 years being in the jungle, he came back to a church to speak for 20 minutes, and they said, we want to hear about snakes and lizards and other stories.

He said, I have one thing to tell you, here's who Jesus is. Verse 21, but, finally

God to the rescue. Like when Wilberforce said, God deliver me from myself. God's merciful,

God's gracious, there's help in time of need. But now the righteousness of God, see we're unrighteous, has been manifested apart from the law.

Can't do it earning it yourself, but it's right there in the Old Testament, although the law and the prophets bear witness to it.

We're going to learn here that God just doesn't say like a grandma or grandpa, ah, no big deal that you sinned.

God just keeps His holy law. He doesn't lower the demands of His righteousness at the expense of justice because of what

Jesus did. This next section, Leon Morris calls, possibly the most important single paragraph ever written.

One man called this the desert island passage. Luther said this is the chief point and the very central place of the epistle and of the whole

Bible. Stott said, there was no ray of light, no flicker of hope, no prospect of rescue.

But, I know something about every unbeliever, and I hope there are no unbelievers here, but if you are, I know something about you.

You have a personal relationship with God. You have a personal relationship with God right now, and it's one of mortal enemy.

You say, I'm not mad at God. Well, He's mad at you because of your sin, because of who you are.

He created you and He expects you to honor Him and to obey Him. So how do we go from an enemy to a friend?

And how can God do that with just keeping His laws here? I mean, I can just tell you

I forgive you if you sin against me, but God can't do that because He has laws. Now, I love the song,

Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so. These next verses parse that exact song out.

You want to know how exactly Jesus loves you? It's going to be good. And I like to think of this as a

Polaroid camera. Sorry, you young people maybe don't know what they are. You have digital cameras and you can take pictures of everything at any time.

But Polaroids, weren't they good? All the gray -haired people are like, yes. Because at the time when we had

Polaroids, or before Polaroids, you have to take a picture and then go give it to the guy to see what it was like, or the lady there at the shop, and then wait, you know, two weeks.

And they had like overnight stuff that you had to pay for. But the Polaroid, you take the picture and out would come this piece of white paper and it was just white paper.

Slowly develop over time, filling in. You do all these things to speed it up.

Come on, I got to go. So here, with Romans, you get like one hue in this verse, it gets a little darker, and by the time you get to the end of Romans 3, you're like, here's who the

Lord is. Even though I was that bad. You might save your wife from a bridge and pull her out of the car like my grandfather did.

But I don't know if you're going to pull out somebody who murdered your own kid. What would

God do? What must God do? Because we can't do anything. We deserve wrath, but now?

We deserve doom, but now? We deserve the lake of fire, but now? We deserve execution, but now?

And we can't give the antidote to ourselves because we're dead. God has expected us to perfectly obey

Him. Do this and live. And we can't perfectly do it. We need somebody to perfectly live the law for us.

This is all driving to what Jesus did on the cross, we don't contribute anything to. When Jesus says, it is finished, we don't say, yeah, you did 90 % and my faith's worth 10.

You did 80 % and my baptism's worth 20. You did like 70%, 99%, and me coming to church and reading my

Bible and doing all these other things, my dad's a pastor. No, when Jesus says, it is finished, it's finished.

Because all our works are tainted like filthy rags. Can't add anything to the work of God.

You can't get to heaven by keeping the law because the law's purpose was to condemn. But it's in the

Old Testament, verse 21 says, the law and the prophets testified of that. Even David said in Psalm 32, how blessed is he whose transgression is covered, are forgiven.

And how do you get it? You know you're guilty, you know you'll stand before God and you have no righteousness, but you want righteousness, how do you get it?

What does the text say, verse 22? The righteousness of God through faith.

Mark that. It's not because of faith, it's not on account of faith, it's through faith in, not

Buddha, not Allah, not in yourself, not in psychology, not in the pastor, not in the pope, in Jesus Christ.

Through faith. That means to say what Jesus did in his life and his death confirmed by the resurrection,

I just take God at his word. I wasn't there 2 ,000 years ago, I don't have eyewitness accounts of it that I personally know who are alive today,

I mean we have eyewitness accounts in scripture, and I'm just going to take God at his word. I take

God at his word that I offer nothing to salvation except my sin. Through faith in Christ Jesus.

Christ was the one faithful to the law, I'm not, and I'm just going to believe God, I'm going to trust in that. And it's open to anyone by the way,

I don't care what your religious background is, I don't care if you're circumcised, uncircumcised, you're from this country or not, what does the text say, for there's no distinction.

For all have sinned, point in time, probably referring to Adam's transgression, and continually fall short of the glory of God.

There is no difference in the sight of God between Hitler and you.

Find yourself an abortion doctor murderer, and find yourself the most sophisticated

Harvard professor, they're both sinners.

When your goal is to get to Pluto by jumping, I don't care if you're standing on Everest or standing on the

Dead Sea bottom, you fall short. See this is the lie of Satan in our own flesh, well there are a lot of other people worse than I am.

Well that's true, but in his sight we move into the courtroom verse 24.

So glad with all the psychological counseling, and do you feel well, and how do you feel about this, and when

I went to Vienna recently I wanted to go to Sigmund Freud's house and just see the couch, because I like Sigmund Freud in psychology?

No, because I hate it but I wanted to see what I hate so I know what I love, right? It's interesting, and you go there the couch isn't in Freud's house anymore although all kinds of other things are because the

Brits stole it and it's in some museum in London. We're moving out of that couch this is why

I do it I have temper because it's my Italian heritage and the devil made me do it, that's the modern evangelical thing, all these other, no, you're standing before God and he's going to declare that you're either guilty if you've sinned one sin,

I said the greatest sin of the day how many sins does it take you to go to hell? She said one.

I said why? He said because God's great when you sin against God, one sin so how are you going to go into the court of God and he calls you defendant needs to rise and what is it going to take for him to say not guilty when you are guilty this word here explains it and are justified by his grace as a gift, full vindication, the gavel comes down and based on Christ's work as a substitute, not guilty.

Justification means this, Jesus lived a perfect life obeying the law and God puts that to your spiritual bank account when you believe you've sinned against the law with your heart soul mind and strength and God credited that to Jesus' account on Calvary and treated him as if he were a sinner deemed him as a sinner even though he wasn't and that substitution worked because God raised

Jesus from the dead justified a legal term a pronouncement, standing before the law as innocent

I am so guilty before God from all my sins and because of what Jesus did you know what,

I stand before God positionally as not guilty and if you believe on the

Lord Jesus Christ the same goes true for you how can that be no guilt in me not a smidgen you know it's like when you go to the fair and you shoot those stars with that pneumatic gun and you have to get every little piece out of the star so you get the prize but whenever they reel it in and they look at it and they're like see there's a little tiny piece there you missed

Christ's death covered everything we are not liable to pay for the penalty because Jesus paid it

Hoyt said it's vastly more than being pardoned it's a thousand times more than forgiveness you may wrong me and then come to me and I may say

I forgive you but I have not justified you, I cannot justify you but when God justifies a man he says

I pronounce you a righteous man amazing no wonder there's no condemnation the opposite of justification for those who are in Christ Jesus we need perfect sinlessness

Jesus earned that for us, do this and live, he did people say well justification is just as if I never sinned now if I'm kind of in the no compromise mode

I go that's kind of a lame answer but if I'm pastoral mode I say at least you're on the right track just as if I never sinned and just as if I perfectly kept the law and Jesus is treated just as if he did sin even though he didn't just as if I perfectly obeyed the law past, present, future this has nothing to do with becoming righteous, this is being declared righteous

Christ's perfect sinless life credited to our account our life of sin imputed to Christ's account

Jesus redeems us we move from courtroom to slave market look at verse 24 and are justified by his grace as a gift now remember if you're

Jewish you're going to be thinking about Egypt through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus oh a flood of things would come to your mind if you were

Jewish redeemed, slave market this is real redemption, I'm studying the Civil War now and when the

Emancipation Proclamation was announced that's about all it was an announcement this isn't just an announcement free from the slave market of sin liberated from the vice grip of sin, the penalty of sin and one day the very presence of sin, no wonder they sing in heaven you were slain and did purchase for God with your blood from every tribe and tongue and people and nation and looking at you today we ought to be glad that it just wasn't the

Jews no wonder Peter says we're redeemed with precious blood as of a lamb unblemished no wonder people love to sing the songs redeemed, redeemed by the blood of the lamb or redeemed,

I love to proclaim it and then we get another word to help us understand how great salvation was, verse 25 whom

God put forward as a propitiation, God had wrath, God poured out

His wrath on His Son as a substitute instead of us, by His blood, by His vicious death to be received by faith this was to show

God's righteousness He's got to uphold the law because in His divine forbearance He passed over former sins now if you have the

NAS it says whom God displayed publicly, ESV says God put forward this isn't a secret deal, this was out in public, this wasn't a hidden execution, you know some people say well why don't you come to our place, we've got the masons and we've got the special handshake and the special deal and it's only for the insiders and the special club deals this is public, for everyone,

Jew, Gentile, Jesus was crucified God vindicates

Himself verse 26 it was to show His righteousness at the present time, so that He might be just He doesn't wink at sin,

He doesn't sweep sin under the table, He doesn't condone it, He doesn't forget it, He doesn't look the other way, no His justice is satisfied because He might be the just and the justifier of the one who has there it is again, faith in Jesus God vindicates

Himself Stifler said the chief question in saving man is not how the man may be accounted just, but how

God may remain so in forgiving sins, and the answer is the cross the cross that's why we're going to preach

Jesus Christ and Him crucified at this church there's always more to say about Christ and what's our response verse 27 then what becomes of our boasting

I got a lot of money I got a lot of brains, I got a lot of brawn I got a lot of boasting you're meant to boast,

I've said this many times God made you a boaster God made you a boaster that's why it's easy for a kid we all used to have those classes show and tell in America you bring something to class and then you show we always called it what instead of show and tell bring and brag, that's right it's easy to teach a kid to do that because it's built in your nature, to boast to brag but because of the fall we like to have the boasting come this way, but if our only contribution to salvation is sin, then we better boast and who

God is and for the Jew here in context I'm boasting that I'm circumcised I'm boasting that I'm a

Jew, and for us I'm boasting that, oh I go to Bethlehem Bible Church I go to IBS no, how about,

I'm boasting in the cross of Christ Jesus it is excluded verse 27, we gotta wrap this up by what kind of law by law of works, no by the law of faith

I don't do anything if I could do something I would boast if I could do something to contribute to my salvation,

I'd get to heaven and I would high five God we did it, and give God a little fist bump right on you and me together solve the problem verse 28 the summary we hold that one is justified by faith apart from the works of the law for those of you who are alive, if you'd like to get to heaven it's through the work of Christ, for those of you who are here and you've lost loved ones your hope is that Jesus did it for them, not that they were good enough to do it for themselves, they by faith just said

I believe what you said the Bible says if you believe that he will not cast you out faith friends doesn't ultimately save anyone as a meritorious thing faith didn't live a perfect life faith didn't die on the cross faith wasn't raised from the dead

Jesus saves and through faith we get his righteousness verse 29, is

God the God of the Jews only? no is he not the God of the Gentiles also? yes, of Gentiles also since God is one who will justify the circumcised, the

Jews by faith and the uncircumcised through faith verse 31, God upholds the just demands of the law, do we then overthrow the law by this faith?

by no means, on the contrary you Jews think we're throwing out the law? we uphold the law because we realize we trust in the one who kept all the law,

Christ Jesus Hoyt said there's only one religion in all the world that can save men and still establish, exalt and honor the law,

Christianity all other systems that are based on legality on salvation by works dishonor the law because nobody ever kept it the inevitable result is that they pull down the law a little bit so that man can win his salvation by keeping it that's exactly what happens to do

God you're not so holy and we're a little less sinful than we thought no wonder top lady wrote nothing in my hands

I bring simply to thy cross I cling, naked come to thee for dress, helpless look to thee for grace foul

I to the fountain fly, wash me savior or I die rock of ages cleft for me let me hide myself in thee bow with me please father in heaven, we are very very thankful for your revealed word today we would recognize that the oracles of God came through the

Jews, they were your special people, they are your special people and they'll be a future for the nation of Israel but father to think that your blessings would spill over for more than just Jewish people we're very thankful and I pray for Bethlehem Bible Church this week, would you help us to boast not in ourselves not in our wisdom not in our might but that we know you because you first knew us that we can talk to you and approach you that we hear you through your word that we don't have to pay for one of our sins and father no matter how bad our bodies might be, lack of jobs and other problems in this world we're forgiven people and father give us the joy that comes along with knowing that we're forgiven father

I pray that you strengthen the Christian today and father I pray for the person who's not a believer,

I pray that you would shut their mouths and then reveal the glorious savior