Romans Chapter Three

Well, good morning. We are going to continue in our study of the book of Romans. If you want to take out your Bible, turn to Romans chapter 3. So what we've been doing is a chapter-by-chapter examination of Paul's letter to the Romans.

The Gospel of God in Romans and the Problem of Human Sin

We're not getting down into the weeds of every single question that Paul raises. Rather, we're looking at this from somewhat of an overview perspective, sort of trying to get the major ideas of Paul's theology that he presents to us in the letter of Romans.

Romans is considered to be his magnum opus, or his greatest letter, and we're thankful to have this letter because it does present to us in the most systematic fashion the understanding of the theology of God.

In fact, I've said in our first lesson, and I think I said it last time, that while the four Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, have often been referred to as the Gospel of Jesus, and Acts has been referred to as the Gospel of the Holy Spirit, because we see the Holy Spirit giving birth to the church and going throughout the different areas through the missionaries and giving birth to planted churches.

Well, Romans could rightly be called the Gospel of God, where we understand the relationship of God and his righteousness and man and his unrighteousness, and how a holy God can enter into a relationship with unholy men.

And so there is certainly more to Romans than that, but there is not less. And there is a principle that we have already seen in this book, and I want to just mention because I do like to mention this, everybody studies different works and things, and one of the guys that I study is a guy by the name of Douglas Moo.

He is a New Testament scholar, and so this is his outline, so anytime I use somebody else's outline, I like to give them credit. And so we are going to look at the principle that we have learned in chapters 1 and 2.

It is very simple. It is that God will judge based on what we do. Now, I told you last week, we are not saved by works, but this principle is still true. God will judge based on what we do. This leads to a problem, and I am going to simplify Dr. Moo's words.

His is a little bit more eloquent. My words is, we do bad. That is the problem. Here is the problem, right? The principle, God is going to judge based on what we do, and the problem is what? We do bad.

I mean, we could be more elaborate and say we are sinners, or we are depraved, or we could use language like that, but the problem is, if God judges on our goodness or our badness, we are in trouble, because we be bad.

And if I went around the room today, and I took a survey, and I asked you how many of you have done only good in your life, I do not think any of you would tell me a lie and say, yeah, I have only done good.

No man in this room, no man in this city, no man on this planet only does good. And so, what we see in chapter 1 is Paul's explanation of man's evil by saying, God has revealed His wrath against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth, for what can be known about God is invisible attributes, namely His divine nature, have been clearly perceived in the things that have been made.

And therefore, when man faces God, he is unapologetus, the Greek means he is without a defense. You cannot stand before God and defend yourself and say, I am a good person, because you are not. That is Paul's argument in Romans 1.

And then in Romans 2, he looks at it from the perspective of the Jewish people, and we talked about this last time, because the Jewish people had the law, and they thought, well, because I have the law, I am better off.

And he says, no, you are not better off, you are actually worse off, because if you have the law, you know what you have done is wrong. You have got the guilt of the law that compounds your guilt. And you look at people who do not have the law, and you say, look how bad they are, but as we said last time, one finger points that way, three fingers point back at yourself.

They have the same guilt. And this is where we get this principle that God is going to judge, because he says in chapter 2, God is going to judge based on what you do, and you have done evil. That is the principle.

Paul Anticipates the Jewish Objection in Romans 3

Now we get to chapter 3, and the good thing about chapter 3 is chapter 3 begins with a blanket condemnation. You say, how is that good? Well, that is not the good part. That is the part that we begin with.

But the end of it, the end of chapter 3 is Paul's beginning to explain how a bad person can be made right with a good God. And it is through what we call justification. How can a bad person be made right with a good God?

And the answer is through justification. So that is what we see in chapter 3. So we are going to read the chapter. It is not super long. It is 31 verses, and then I am going to break it into parts and we will talk about each of the parts.

So let's look at verse 1. Then what advantage has the Jew? What is the value of circumcision? Much and every way. To begin with, the Jews were entrusted with the oracles of God. What if some were unfaithful?

Does their unfaithfulness, or excuse me, does their faithlessness nullify the faithfulness of God? By no means. Let God be true, though everyone were a liar, as it is written, that you may be justified in your words and prevail when you are judged.

But if our unrighteousness serves to show the righteousness of God, what shall we say? That God is unrighteous to inflict wrath on us? I speak in a human way by no means, for then how could God judge the world?

But if through my lie God's truth abounds to His glory, why am I still condemned as a sinner? And why not do evil that good may come, as some have slanderously charged us with saying their condemnation is just?

What then? Are we Jews? Any better off? No, not at all. For we've already charged that all, both Jews and Greeks, are under sin. As it is written, none is righteous. No not one. No one understands. No one seeks for God.

All have turned aside. Together they have become worthless. No one does good, not even one. Their throat is an open grave. They use their tongues to deceive. The venom of asps is under their lips. That's a snake, by the way, an asp.

Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed blood. In their paths are ruin and misery, and the way of peace they have not known. There is no fear of God before their eyes.

Now, we know that whatever the law says, it speaks to those who are under the law so that every mouth may be stopped and the whole world may be held accountable to God. For by works of the law, no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes the knowledge of sin.

But now, the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the law and the prophets bear witness to it, the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe, for there is no distinction, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God and are justified by the grace of God through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by His blood to be received by faith.

This was to show God's righteousness because in His divine forbearance, He had passed over former sins. It was to show His righteousness at this present time so that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.

Then what becomes of our boasting? It is excluded. By what kind of law? By the law of works? No, by the law of faith, for we hold that one is justified by faith apart from the works of the law. Or is God the God of Jews only, or is He not the God of Gentiles also?

Yes, of Gentiles also, since God is one who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith. Do we then overthrow the law by this faith? By no means. On the contrary, we uphold the law.

Let's pray. Father, as I seek to give an understanding of Your Word, I pray first and foremost that You would keep me from error. Lord, I pray for the sake of these men and for the sake of my conscience that You would glorify Yourself in the preaching of Your Word, and I pray, Lord, that this message would not only be understood in the brain, but Lord, that it would move from the mind to the heart, and Lord, that You would use this to draw these men closer to You.

Lord, for those who are saved, that this would be a word of edification, correction, and instruction. Lord, for those who are not saved, that this would be a word of warning and a call to repentance. In Jesus' name, amen.

The Advantage of the Jew and the Faithfulness of God

So Paul is addressing in the first portion of chapter 3 a question that seems to naturally erupt out of what he has said in the previous chapter. As a teacher, I understand Paul's method here, because having been in teaching now all of my adult life, especially when you've taught something more than once, and you've taught something to multiple audiences, you tend to learn to anticipate objections.

You learn to anticipate what somebody's going to say, because most people have the same questions. I don't know if you've ever been to Bible conferences where they have the question and answer period at the time where all the pastors get up and answer questions.

It's always the same questions. How can a loving God send people to hell? It's always the same questions, because everybody sort of has the same questions, right? There might be one or two real wild balls thrown out there, some real crazy flyers, but in general it's the same questions, because most people have the same questions.

And we tend to have the same objections. So when I'm teaching on something difficult, like say the doctrine of the Trinity or the doctrine of election, something that is a deep theological truth, I anticipate the objections based upon previous experience.

You tend to learn what people are going to say, and you're ready to answer those questions. Well, throughout Romans, Paul anticipates the objection. In fact, we're going to see this here, we're going to see this in chapter 6, we're going to see this in chapter 9, and we're going to see it several times throughout, where Paul will say, well, what shall we say then?

Because he's anticipating what the objector is going to say. What shall we say then? Right? Chapter 6, what shall we say? Should we continue in sin so that grace can abound? No. Or in chapter 9, when he's talking about election, what shall we say?

Is God unjust? No. Right? So he's preparing for this objection. Well, the objection we get to in Romans 3 is the objection of the Jewish person. Because the Jewish person has rightly understood themselves to have a special advantage with the God of the universe, because God chose Israel from all the nations and gave them His Word, His priesthood, His tabernacle, which became the temple.

He has given them wonderful benefits. And even in the books of the prophets, he has said things about Israel that were different than the other nations. One of my favorite passages is in the book of Amos, because in Amos 3, verse 2, he says of Israel, you of all the nations have I known.

The word know there doesn't just simply mean know with like a knowledge, but the word know means love, like where the Bible says Adam knew Eve and conceived and bore a child, right? That speaks of intimacy, of sexual intimacy, but it's still the word knowledge is not just I know you.

When God says He knows someone, it's referring to relationship. This is why when Jesus in Matthew 7 says on that day, many I will say depart from me, I never what? Never knew you, right? Because it's a relationship.

The word know there speaks of a relationship. So when God in Amos says to the nation of Israel, you above all nations have I known, it's speaking of His relationship with Israel that is obviously different, right?

God's relationship with Abraham was different than His relationship with the Canaanites. Amen? They better amen that, because it's right. I'll ask for amens. I say, no, no, no. No, it's right. Abraham had a different relationship.

Isaac had a different relationship than his brother Esau. I'm sorry, Isaac and Ishmael. Jacob had a different relationship than Esau, right? There is this relationship of election. God chooses the nation of Israel.

He chooses the Jewish people. And so the question that Paul anticipates in chapter 3 is if everybody is going to be judged based on what they do, and everybody has done bad, including the Jewish people, then what advantage do the Jewish people have?

Really, what benefit is there to being Jewish? And Paul answers that question in verse 1. Well, actually, he asks the question, he says, what advantage has the Jew? What is the value of circumcision? And his answer, much in every way.

It was good in that sense. And because, first and foremost, verse 2, because to the Jews were entrusted the oracles of God. What are the oracles of God? The word. The word, yeah. The word oracles. Galatians.

But the word oracle means God's prophetic voice, His Word. So they didn't have Galatians at this point in the sense that he's talking about the Old Testament. He says the Jewish people were given the Word of God.

They had Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, Ruth. They had all those books. They had God's Word written to them by God's men, the prophets, right? And he says that by itself is an advantage.

Because you understand, at this point, Paul's writing in the first century. Paul's probably writing this somewhere in the 50's. I don't mean the 1950's, like the Doo-Wop era. No, I mean the original 50's, right?

Jesus dies around the year 33, somewhere-ish. The next 20 years, there's nothing written. It's all being proclaimed by word of mouth. And probably the first book Paul writes is the book of Galatians, probably around 48 -49.

So it would have been about 20 years after Christ died and raised and went into heaven. So the first book of the New Testament written by Paul is somewhere around the 40's. I'm sorry, around the 50's.

48 -49. Romans is written later than that. Probably in the mid -50's. Somewhere around in there. So we've got Paul. He's speaking to this group. And he says, you all have been entrusted the oracles of God.

Meaning, you have what we would call the Old Testament. They wouldn't call it the Old Testament, because they didn't have a New Testament yet. The New Testament was being written. They didn't have a New Testament.

They had the word of God. They had the Torah, what they called the... Well, that was the first five books. That's the Torah. But what they had was what they called the Tanakh. That is the Torah, the Nevi 'im and the Ketuvim.

The Torah, the Nevi 'im and the Ketuvim is the law, the prophets and the writings. That's how they defined the Old Testament. Huh? Well, the Apostolic would be New Testament. Because remember, the apostles are under Christ.

So that would have been a New Testament. Yeah, and we would say the New Testament has apostolic affirmation or confirmation. Right? Because that's how we have trust that the New Testament is what it is.

But the Old Testament comes through the nation of Israel, not through the apostles, but through Moses and the prophets. So we have the Torah, the Nevi 'im and the Ketuvim, which they simply shortened to the Tanakh.

And so this is Paul's point. They have an advantage, first advantage. They got the word of God. Now that does tell us something about us, and I don't want to jump into application too quickly. But if you ever wonder what advantage you have, if you're holding a Bible, that's a pretty big advantage.

You know there's people in the world who don't have a Bible in their language. Still, to this day. Which drives me crazy. Because we're still making English translations. Why are we still translating into English?

We've been translating into English 50 ,000 times. Why not translate it into a language that's never been translated into? I know the reason why I don't want to say it. It's money. It's money. We want to make money off new translations rather than translate for people that couldn't afford to pay for it.

That's getting to the ugly side of evangelicalism, but that really is what it is. We have a wealth of blessing. You can read the Bible in King James English. You can read it in teenage English. You can read it in stupid English.

They got it now in slang. And Jesus walked up and said, what's up? I mean, it's all kinds. We are blessed with a wealth because we have the Word of God. Right? And Paul says that was one of the blessings of Israel.

They were entrusted with the oracles of God. What greater blessing? But then he asked this, but what if some were unfaithful? This is verse 3. What if some of them were unfaithful? Does their faithlessness nullify the faithfulness of God?

No. Just because they were unfaithful doesn't mean God is unfaithful. This is why, and again, I'm not going to do this every verse. I don't have time. But this verse can be applied to us too because people will say, oh, I don't want to believe in God because Christians act a fool.

Trust me, the unfaithfulness of people who call themselves Christians does not nullify the goodness and faithfulness of God. Right? And some Christians do act a fool. And some of them ain't even Christians at all.

But at the end of the day, our unfaithfulness does not nullify the faithfulness of God. You need? Yeah, OK. So that's why he said in verse 4, they asked, does their unfaithfulness nullify faithfulness?

By no means. Let God be true, though every man were a liar. Right? God's faithfulness is going to stand regardless. And then he quotes from the Old Testament in verse 4, as it is written. I believe that's from Psalm 51.

Let me double check that. I don't want to give you a wrong address. Well, maybe I'm wrong. Let's see. I'm sorry. I'll look it up. I'll look it up. I'm sorry. I thought it was Psalm 51, but it's not. I don't know.

I have to look it up. What's pulling up here doesn't seem to be right. What was it? That you may be justified in your words and prevail when you're judged. Basically, what he's saying is God is going to judge rightly.

He's going to be justified or declared righteous by what he says, because God is righteous. God is holy. And then he goes on to ask another question. He's anticipating objections. Verse 5, if our unrighteousness serves to show the righteousness of God, what shall we say?

That God is unrighteous to inflict wrath on us? No. And he says, I speak in a human way. That's the way the ESV translates it. He's saying, because I'm giving you the human objection. The human objection is that if my unrighteousness serves to show God's righteousness, that means God's unrighteous.

And the answer is no. How could God judge the world if he's unrighteous? Then verse 7, but if through my lie God's truth abounds with his glory, why am I still condemned as a sinner? And why not do evil that good may come?

You ever heard somebody say that? Well, if God's going to make good out of this anyway, I'm just going to do what I want to do. Because people use Genesis 50 that way. Genesis 50, 20, when Joseph is at the end of his life and his brothers have sold him into slavery, they've done all the evil to him, at the end of his life, he looks at him and he says, hey guys, what you meant for evil, God meant for good, to bring about many people saved this day.

Some people look at that verse and they say, oh, well, if God can take my evil and turn it around for good, then it doesn't matter what I do. I'm going to keep doing evil so that God can make it into good.

You know, God takes my lemons and turns them into lemonade. Yes, and can God do that? Yes. But does that give us an excuse for doing evil? No. Joseph's brothers were still guilty. Even though God used what they did for good, they were still guilty of what they did.

This is why we see them expressing repentance in Genesis, I think it's Genesis 47, when they're faced with Joseph and he puts them through those tests and finally Judah has to come out and offer himself as a sacrifice for Benjamin and we see this contrition in his heart.

We know we have sinned, right? That's the point, is just because God can take our evil and turn it into good doesn't mean that our evil is excused. We're still guilty and we still need to be forgiven.

Even if God has used our evil to bring about some good. That doesn't excuse our evil deed or our evil intentions. So anyway, all of this is building. Paul is like you've seen people take a snowball and put it on top of the hill and roll a snowball down the hill and as it begins to roll down the hill, it picks up more snow and more snow and more snow and finally it's a big huge snowball.

We've seen this on Warner Brothers, right? Cartoons, right? They push the big snowball down the hill. Paul is building a snowball case. This is the case. We all are unrighteous. We all are bad. And if you don't believe that, then look with me at verse 9.

Because he asks this question. What then? Are we Jews any better off? Not at all. For we have already charged both Jews and Greeks are under sin. Under sin. Very important phrase. Because what it means when he says we are under sin is we are under the condemnation that sin brings.

One of the things that is so important, before a man can get saved, he first has to get lost. And what do I mean by that? Before a man can recognize his need for a Savior, he has to realize that he is condemned by God's law and he needs a Savior.

This is why if you ever go evangelizing, if we ever go out on the street witnessing, or if you ever come to the fishing hole, which is a thing our church does when we go out and put up a booth and hand out tracts and talk to people, you don't ever hear me walk up to somebody and say, hey, Jesus loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life.

Because that's not the Gospel. That is not the way we begin the Gospel. Because is it true that Jesus loves you? Yes. Is it true that He has a wonderful plan for your life? Well, yeah, in a sense. I mean, if you become a martyr, that may seem like a rough plan, but there's a good plan on the other side of glory, right?

There's a good plan coming. So is it true? Yes, it's true, but it's not the whole story. Because what we have to understand is most men, especially today in our self-righteous society, and we do have a self-righteous society, we have a society of people who promote every wickedness as a virtue.

We've got men dressing up as women and reading to kids in libraries. And they say, oh, it's okay, because I'm giving out the virtue of transsexuality. No, you're giving out perversion for free. That's not virtuous.

It's sick. But we exalt it as virtuous. Now they have a thing called MAPS. You know what MAPS is? MAPS is the scientific term for a minor attracted person. You know what a minor attracted person means?

A pedophile. But they want to make it virtuous, so they give it a virtuous name. You understand? We are at the point that Isaiah condemned when he said, woe unto you who call evil good and good evil, who take light and put it for darkness, and take bitter and put it for sweet.

You've exchanged the good for the bad. And that's what we've done. In every area of our government and our society, we've exchanged the Bible for pseudoscience. We've exchanged the truth about morals and morality with an ungodly immorality.

And anybody who stands up for the Bible or morality are condemned as bigots and hateful and mean and all kinds of terrible things. I got kind of off the subject. My point is, because we live in a self-righteous society, because we live in a society where no matter what a man does, he feels right in his own eyes.

I don't care who it is. You ask any man. Proverbs will tell you this. Proverbs says almost every man will proclaim his own goodness. I don't care if you meet a guy who's killed 20 people. You walk up to him, are you a good person?

Well, yeah, I'm pretty good. Why? Because we have a wicked, perverted view of what is good. Jesus had a man come to Him, rich ruler came to Jesus and said, good teacher, what must I do to be saved? And Jesus said, what?

Why do you call me good? Now Jesus, the only good man who ever lived, the only righteous man, 33 years, didn't sin once. I can't go 33 seconds. He lived 33 years. Didn't sin one time. And He still looked at that man and said, why do you call me good?

Now He's not denying His own goodness. He's saying to that rich young ruler, why do you call a man good? When there is only one good and that is God. Jesus is addressing His understanding of goodness.

Because what happens in that story, if you don't remember, is that man calls Jesus good. Jesus said, why do you call me good? There's only one good, God alone. He says, you know what to do. The law tells you what to do.

And the man says, I've done all that. See, he thought he was good too. He says, I've done all that. See, he thought he was good. That's why Jesus said, go sell everything you own, come back and follow Me.

It says He went away sad. Jesus laughed when He said that.

Well, yeah, when the guy said, I've done all the law. Yeah, right. Go sell everything, come back. Now you may think Jesus is being harsh with him. What Jesus is doing is Jesus is exposing the sinfulness of His heart.

Because He did have an idol, and that idol was His wealth. He had one thing that He worshipped more than God, and it was what He owned. Because when Jesus said, sell everything you own and come back and follow Me, He said, I'm not willing to do that.

Well, there's your problem. There's your problem. He twisted out the laws too. I think the only one that He didn't say was... Yeah, yeah.

And then He charged him with idolatry. And so, you all know this because we've talked about it before, but when we share in the Gospel with people, one of the first things I do as I ask them, do you think you're a good person?

Because almost everybody says yes. Can I ask you a few questions to see if that's true? Can I ask you a few questions to see if you're a good person? First of all, by what standard are you good? Well, I'm better than my neighbor.

You know, he cheats on his taxes. I don't cheat on my taxes. Or I'm better than my other neighbor. He cheats on his wife. I don't cheat on my wife. Okay. So, by the standard of relative morality, then you're better than your two neighbors who seem like a couple of skis balls, right?

Okay, so you outdid them. But let me ask you this, compared to Jesus, if Jesus is the standard, where do you fall? Not even close. Right? The old picture, right? If you took Jesus and put Him over here, and you took the worst possible person, and you might say Hitler, Mussolini, right?

I don't know who you're going to put over here, but you're going to put somebody bad, right? Who? Genghis Khan, right? He killed everybody. So you've got Jesus and him. Where are you? See, a lot of people want to put themselves somewhere in the middle, or maybe a little closer to Jesus, because I'm nothing like Genghis Khan.

No, here's the thing. The same seed of sin that was in Genghis Khan, the same seed of sin that was in Adolf Hitler, the same seed of sin that was in Ted Bundy, the same seed of sin that was in Timothy McVeigh, I don't care, you go down the list, resides within you.

And you stand before God guilty of breaking His law. And that's why we get to verse 10. He says, as it is written, there is none righteous, no, not one. Notice. He doesn't say there's none perfect, because all of us would say, ah, nobody's perfect.

No, none righteous. There is no one who understands. There is no one who seeks for God. That gets people upset, because people say, oh, I've been seeking God my whole life. No, you've been seeking your version of God.

What people do is they produce a God in their mind, and they seek after that God. And what's that called, class? Idolatry. It's baloney. That's right, that's the Greek word for it. But idolatry, when we produce a God in our own mind.

I've told this story a hundred times. Some of you have heard it a hundred times. But I like this story. Years and years and years ago, when I met that little girl in Kmart, I gave her a Gospel tract. She read it and got mad at me, handed it back to me, and said, I don't want this, because my goddess would never send somebody to hell.

I said, you're right. Your goddess doesn't exist. You made her up in your own mind to satisfy what you want your God to be, or goddess. Yeah, she's not going to send you to hell, because you made her up.

The God who exists is a holy and righteous God. And He says to every man, there is none righteous, no, not one. And we don't seek after Him. He seeks after us. That's the difference. If you are saved today, it is because God was good enough in His mercy to come after you.

You didn't go after Him. This is why the old evangelists would call the Holy Spirit... I've never felt good about this phrase, because I don't like comparing God to a dog, but I know what they're saying, so I understand.

They would call the Holy Spirit the hound of heaven. Because when a hound gets on a scent, he don't let it go until he catches what he's after, right? And so they say the Holy Spirit is the hound of heaven, who when he sets his mark upon a man, he will go after that man, and he will draw that man, and he will save that man.

It's not you who seek after him, but him who seeks after you. That's the point of the analogy. And I think that that part in and of itself is true. But Paul is condemning us. He's saying no one seeks for God.

Then he goes to the positive. All have turned aside. All have become worthless. No one does good. Not even one. See, now it's not even righteous, it's goodness. No one does good. Can I say something to you without offending you?

Probably not, but I'll try. Everything... And this is controversial, so if you want to argue with me, do it afterward. But it's somewhat controversial. Let me give you my logical reason why I say this.

Everything the unbeliever does is sin. Even his most virtuous works. The reason why is because the Bible says that which is not done in faith is sin. That's why Paul can say there's none good, not even one.

Because he's talking about us in our unredeemed state. And in our unredeemed state, if we are outside of Christ, even the best things we do, even if we were a millionaire giving all our money to the poor, even the very best things we do, if it is outside of faith in Christ, it is not a truly good thing because it's not done in faith.

Just think about this. The whole poem. I read this at funerals sometimes. When I do a funeral for a believer, because I do a lot of funerals for unbelievers, but when I do a funeral for a believer, I'll often read the poem.

And I don't remember the whole poem, but there's a refrain in the poem that says over and over, only one life will soon be passed and only what's done for Christ will last. Only one life will soon be passed and only what's done for Christ will last.

When we say, oh, I know a good man, but he's not a Christian. You don't know a good man. You know a moralistically, relatively decent human being, but he's still a sinner. I always use the illustration of pirates.

And I don't mean like Jack Sparrow and Captain whatever. I'm talking about like for real pirates. And pirates are still a thing, right? There's a movie about the pirates that was taking over the shipping.

The ships that were going through over the Middle East, they were going through and these pirates would take over the ships. They're still a thing, right? Now pirates, when they are on their ship, they have rules they live by.

They have a captain, a pirate ship captain. They have deck mates. They all have their jobs that they do and they all live under a code of conduct on that pirate ship. But at the end of the day, they're all maritime criminals.

They're all doing bad even though they're doing good to one another. You get what I'm saying? Even though they're doing good to one another, they're still living outside of the laws of decent society.

So now look at it like this. We are all men. We live in the world. We might do good to one another, but if we are living in rebellion to God, we are not doing good. And if we refuse to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, we are living in rebellion to God.

Simple as that. So when He says there's none righteous, no one understands, no one seeks for God, no one does good, not even one. You ain't the exception. These are what we call universal negatives. No one does good, not even one.

Then He gives a description. Their throat is an open grave. They use their tongues to deceive. The venom of asps is under their lips. Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness. I could do a whole sermon on just those four lines because those four lines describe where the worst part of our sin comes from.

We often think it's our hands. It's not. It's our mouths. We use our mouths to tear men down. We use our mouths to destroy men's reputations. We use our mouths to abuse our wives. We use our mouths to hurt our children.

We use our mouths to ruin reputations. We do all these things with our mouths. This is why Jesus talked about what's in the heart comes out of the mouth. And this should remind us just how important it is what we say.