(Romans) All the World Guilty Before God — Willie Mullan

Romans 3: Paul Brings the World Guilty Before God

A great, wonderful letter of Paul to the saints at Rome, and we're at the third chapter this evening. You remember that in the first chapter, when Paul had given the salutation and the introduction why he was writing this letter to the saints, that he said in verse 18, For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men.

And then you remember how in the rest of that first chapter he let us see the cesspool of iniquity that the ungodly sons of Adam's race had really got into. And I think that some of us were shocked with the dreadful things revealed at the end of the first chapter of that letter to the Romans.

You see, Paul was showing the ungodliness that's in this world, and then he's proving that the wrath of God is already revealed against ungodliness and unrighteousness of men. Then in the second chapter, he took up the self-righteousness of man.

And when he had finished showing this self-righteousness, my, it was as corrupt in the eyes of God as the ungodliness in the first chapter. We found out that Paul, the Pharisee, who had said that concerning the righteousness which was demanded in the law, he was blameless.

This self-righteous Pharisee, when brought to his senses in a convicted state before the Lord, said, this is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptation, Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, and he added, Of whom I am faithful.

So that Paul levels out the unrighteousness and the self-righteousness, and brings all in guilty before God. And then last week, at the end of the second chapter, he dealt with the professed religiousness of the Jew, and proved that empty, false, professed religiosity was getting nowhere with God, and it too was under the wrath of God.

And now he's just going up one step more this evening. He's not letting this subject go until he has the whole world guilty before God. And in these twenty verses, the first twenty verses of chapter three, Paul is working hard to bring the whole world in guilty before God, and he definitely succeeds.

Now these twenty verses this evening, they divide very naturally into four different portions. In the first eight verses of this chapter, we have some wonderful questions. And I've called this portion, The Interrogations Paul Faced.

And you know, it's good to see some of these questions being honestly faced. And so we shall look very carefully at them. The Interrogations Paul Faced. And then in the next four verses, 9, 10, 11, 12, we have the conclusions Paul reached, and for every worker, every Christian worker, we ought to have these conclusions, away deep down in our hearts, and held very tightly, of divine convictions.

And we shall take our time with the conclusions Paul reached. And then in the next six verses, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, we have the corruptions Paul marked. And what a bit of painting this is with a pen.

This is pen painting the corruptions of man. And then in the last two verses tonight, 19 and 20, we have the convictions Paul penned. Now here are the four divisions. The Interrogations Paul Faced. The Conclusions Paul Reached.

The Corruptions Paul Marked. The Convictions Paul Penned. And we're all set for starting. We must remember that last week, when we began in verse 17, right down to verse 29 of the second chapter, that Paul was dealing exclusively with the religious Jew.

Remember, he dealt with the name that the Jew bore. Verse 17, Behold, thou art called a Jew. Or, as another translation puts it, Behold, thou art called to bear the name Jew. And so he dealt with the Jew exclusively.

And then he came to these conclusions. Verse 26, he said, Therefore if thee on circumcision keep the righteousness of the law, shall not his on circumcision be counted for circumcision? And shall not on circumcision, which is by nature, if it fulfil the law, judge thee, who by the letter on circumcision doth transgress the law?

And then he said out loud, For he is not a Jew, which is one outwardly. You see, the name Jew means praise to God. And of course, the Pharisee, who was only a whited satanica, full of dead men's bones and rottenness.

So the Lord Jesus said, He was only a Jew outwardly, and he was no praise to God. And then Paul said this, For he is not a Jew, which is one outwardly, neither is that circumcision, which is outward in the flesh, it is the right of circumcision, didn't make him stand as separated soul for God.

Then it didn't count for very much. And so when Paul got all that off his chest, he knew quite well that he was going to be asked some very pointed questions from the Jews. And so he anticipates them and he answers them very wonderfully.

So we start the interrogations, Paul says. You see, this is the first question that is bound to come. What advantage then hath a Jew? Or what profit is there of circumcision? You see, what's the use of being called a Jew?

Or what profit is there in being circumcised? If you're only a Jew when you're one inwardly. And circumcision only counts when you're really separated to God. So he was anticipating these questions, and rightly so, because these questions are still asked.

You see, even in our day and generation, questions like these are asked. I remember going to the hospital to see a man some years ago in the Royal. As far as I remember, it was his brother who phoned me to ask me to go and see him.

And honestly, I didn't know his brother, nor did I know the man I was going to see. I suppose his brother was throwing off his own responsibility onto poor me. However, I took up the challenge and I went to see this man in hospital.

Stranger, of course. And I found a very nice, well-spoken, well-learned gentleman, well-educated, I'm perfectly sure. And after speaking to him for a few moments at the bedside, I said, are you a Christian?

He said, what? He said, wasn't I born in a Christian country? Don't I have a Christian name? Don't I belong to a Christian family? Wasn't I baptized with Christian baptism? So he really went for me, you see.

I said, I'm perfectly sure that a gentleman of your intelligence knows quite well that Christianity has some connections with Christ. That you cannot have Christianity without having Christ. And it's the personal acceptance of Christ that brings Christianity to you.

Let me inform you, you have nothing to do with being born in a Christian country. And you have nothing to do with being born in a Christian family. And you have nothing whatever to do with getting your Christian name.

And for the rite that you call Christian baptism, you and I would need to have a long talk about it. To me it's totally strangely, but that's another subject. He was a wee bit taken back at this, you see.

I said, what I meant was this. Have you personally ever accepted Christ? Then he came back with this question. What's the advantage of being born in a Christian country? What's the advantage of my Christian name?

What's the advantage of my Christian home? What's the advantage of my so-called Christian baptism? I said, it just tells you what the law told the Jews. You see, the law brought to the Jews a real conviction that condemned them.

And when you talk about being in a Christian home, and having a Christian name, and being in a Christian land, your own language is starting to condemn already. Dare to talk about Christianity when you're rejecting Christ.

Who's there? How can you link yourself up when you have no time for Christ? For alone can bring Christianity to your life. Remember me telling you the story about walking into the paper shop up here one morning?

Walked into the paper shop and it was full, you see, full of people. Well, at the far end, he was a communist, I know him very well, lived in the town here. He thought he would rattle me. And he held a big picture of Stalin up, beautiful picture it was, full page.

Looked up the shop and said, Mr. Mullen, there's the man that brought Christianity to this world. Because I just walked slowly on up the shop and I said, man, you must be a great damn. I meant to rattle him, of course I did.

I said, you know, I'm looking in between your ears and I wonder what's in between them. Can't bring Christianity, all he could bring was Stalinanity. You need Christ for Christianity. And if you're going to profess to be a Christian, you'll need to personally, your own self, accept Christ, who as many as receive him.

That's the point. And all that you have heard of the advantage of being in the Christian land and in a so-called Christian home, ought to have instructed you that you personally need to accept Christ to enjoy Christianity.

So that's what Paul was actually getting up here. But Paul did something else. Did it like this. He faced the question, what advantage then have the Jews? Or what profit is there of circumcision? He said this, much every way.

And I think with many other scholars that he was about to outline many of the things that were advantageous to the Jews. He just took the first one. He said, safely, safely, because not unto them, the Jews, were committed the oracles of God.

You know, that's a very wonderful Greek word that's translated, oracles. Actually, it could be better translated, the utterances of God. You know, the Jew had the direct, infallible, unchangeable, impregnable utterances of the living God.

And in those utterances, there were many promises to the Jew. And don't you get it to the church, we happen to be dealing with a Jew. And I'm not letting you change it, not on your life I'm not. We'll just hold it where it is.

My, they had full authority upon. They had. The Jew had. They had the utterances of God. And in those utterances, there were many promises made to the Jew. And God will keep them. My, he'll not shuffle the deck of cards of the promises to get away from keeping his promises that he made to the Jew, not on your life anymore.

He'll keep them. But you know, not only were the utterances compiled of promises to the Jewish nation, powerful promises, but there were witty warnings given to them too. And God meant to keep the warnings just as much as the promises.

You see, if they were not going to obey, if they were going to go their own way, then God would come and catch them. So would be judged. And so in these articles, or in these utterances, they were powerful promises and there were witty warnings.

But you know, the utterances of God, that's what they did. They made God a liar. Because you do know when you don't believe God, you make him a liar, don't you? You know that. You see, we've always got to take the time in these messages to come from the old economy to the new.

You see, in the gospel of God, my, there are mighty utterances and powerful promises to him that will believe. And there are witty warnings for them that will die in unbelief. And some of you sitting here, you neither take in the promises, nor are you moved by them.

No, no. You just make God a liar. You couldn't believe tonight that God would keep his promise to you. You couldn't believe that the works done, and the prices paid, and the blood shed, and the battles fought, and the sacrifice made, and the Savior alive, and whosoever shall call upon his name shall be saved.

Oh no, you'll have to crumble a bit with it. That never gives me any bother believing God. Never gives me any bother at all. I can believe God. When we get into the next chapter, you'll see that Abraham believed God, just like that.

Just like that. But you know, Paul is a very wonderful teacher. He's just pointing out that the very first privilege or advantage that the Jew had was that these articles that contained the powerful promises and the witty warnings were made to the Jewish nation.

Now he comes with a second question. For what if some did not believe? Now, watch this. Shall their unbelief make the faithfulness of God, that word should be, make the faithfulness of God without effect?

Shall it? Not on your life, it'll not. Well, this is a wonderful thing, that God will be quite capable of working out all that he said under witty warnings to the nation, and yet at the same time fulfilling the powerful promises.

And their own belief, their own unbelief won't make the faithfulness of God without effect. Not at all. You know, God will work it all out, won't he? He'll do the wonderful things for the Jewish nation that he said he would do, and the judgments that were given in warning will fall upon their heads.

So Paul's really getting down to things. Now, watch. He's saying this in verse three, for what if some did not believe? Shall their unbelief make the faithfulness of God without effect? Shall their lies towards God, or shall their making out God a liar?

He says, God forbid. Let God be true, and every man a liar. Because he's balancing the word liar with unbelief here, you know. Because if you're an unbeliever tonight, you just make God out a liar, and don't you forget that as you sit on the seat.

Because you just can't believe God's saying the truth, that's all. That's where you are, where you are. You're just calling God a liar. You can't believe that what God's saying is true. Paul just turns it around, he says, Let God be true, and every man a liar, as it is written, that thou mightest be justified in thy things, and mightest overcome when thou judgest.

You see, whether God works out the faithfulness or brings down the judgment, my, he'll berate all the time. Let God be true. Now he comes to one of the most serious questions that he's ever going to face.

He anticipates somebody saying something like this, But if our unrighteousness commend the righteousness of God, what shall we say? Is God unrighteous, who'll take a vengeance? I speak as a man. God forbid, he says, for then how shall God judge the world?

Here's the great question. Why if the truth of God hath more abounded through my lie unto his glory, why yet am I also judged as a sinner? You know, some people are so whopped that they talk like you.

You know, I gave bible readings in the great convention in Fifeshire some years ago, and bible readings were always given in the morning, eleven o 'clock in the morning, and I expounded some portion from eleven to twelve.

Then you stopped from twelve to twenty past twelve and had coffee, and you sat round little round tables and you all made your mind up about what the picture said, and then you had from then to one o 'clock to tackle them on the questions, and while we had some real showdowns in those wonderful moments after the coffee.

I can remember an agnostic being here one morning, and we were going through Romans, and just as soon as the session started again, he got to his feet and said, I'm an unbeliever, can I ask a question?

I said, certainly you can. He said, if God uses sin to bring glory to his own name, how can he righteously judge the sinner? I said, that's just as whopped and as crooked and diabolical question as I've ever heard in my life.

He said, you're not to make remarks on what I'm saying, you're to answer the question, which was quite correct. I said, I'm only making the remarks before I answer the question, that's all. And I said to him, supposing you owed me ten thousand pounds, and then just to be sarcastic about it, I said, I wouldn't like a character like you to owe me very much, just to rub it in.

I said, supposing you owed me ten thousand pounds, and I was pressing you for the money, and in those days of pressure you went all around the country, and you slandered my name in every quarter that you could, and did everything against me that you could.

And then at last, just out of pure mercy, and graciousness, and love, I came round and I forgave you everything. I said, look, it's all over. I'm just forgiving you, that's all. And of course, people might hear of the wonderful act of graciousness and mercy that I have done towards you.

Would you say that it would be more right to praise your sin than my grace? I said, I would judge that you're a character who would believe there are certain things that need to be punished. Supposing you saw a man beating a baby in a cot with a stick, and remember it has happened in this old world of ours, there are men taken up for cruelty to children, and the ex are diabolical.

I said, can I ask you, would you think that he shouldn't be judged? He said, I know he should be judged. I said, then if you can make one sin, something that cannot be judged, just because God's got glory in the forgiveness, then you'll have to make all sins that they can't be judged.

I said, you know, Paul said, how can God judge the world if you talk like that? Then I said, remember God just didn't come round and say, you're forgiven, son. I said, you know, the acts that we had committed, and the sins in thought and word and deed, had to see them dealt with in the totality for eternity, and they had to see them dealt with in the passion of his son.

You know, God had to give his son as a sacrifice, and his son had to go to Calvary, and the trust between the upper and nether millstones of God's wrath, that sin might be dealt with. I said, do you think you have anything to glory in?

And I can remember this big man. He stood with his head down. He said, I'm ashamed of what I said. I said, and you have every right to be. You know, there are some people so locked in their minds that they would even ask questions that are so diabolically crooked as this one.

Oh no, you can't get off of that sort of thing. What would Paul say to that sort of thing? I will read it over again so that you'll get the content of it. Verse 5,. But if our unrighteousness commend the righteousness of God, what shall we say?

Is God unrighteous who taketh vengeance? God forbid, for then how shall God judge the world? For if the truth of God hath more abounded through my lie unto his glory, why yet am I ought to judge to the sinner?

And not rather, as we beslanderously reported in the summer firm that we say, let us do evil that good may come. That's that sort of teaching. He said, Paul says about it, Whose damnation is just? That's what he said.

You see, people would try this crooked what business just because they want to sin, just because they want to go on sinning, just because they would try to make out that my sin will bring glory to God.

Oh, what a what business, just because they want to escape the judgment hour after tomorrow. I say this with Paul tonight, Your damnation is just, and you'll be justly damned, and damned in the pit of hell.

Now, you know the Lord tackled the Pharisees like this. He was growing up to them, and he said, Why is that temple a curse, full of dead men's bones and rottenness? How can ye escape the damnation of hell?

It was Jesus Christ that said that. He was no sassy, you know. People seem to think he was, but he wasn't. To come on to say that to the Pharisees, and that's the sort of preaching that these old Pharisees need yet, and there might be one or two in this meeting.

And if you're a white sepulcher rolled up in dead empty formal religion, and you think you're going to escape the judgment, I can tell you this, your damnation is just. You'll be damned for rejecting Christ, and it'll be justly.

Paul’s Conclusions: No One Is Righteous

Now, having faced the questions, here's another one, and then we start, we're starting into the conclusions Paul reached. Verse 9, he says, What then? Are we better than they? And there's been a lot of talk about who the we is under they.

I think I can see Paul, the writer in the we, and the believers at Rome in the we. Surely he's embracing the saints and themselves when he says we. And I think in the way that he's going right back to the unrighteous in the first chapter, and the self-righteous in the second chapter, and the dead empty religionist in the third chapter, and he's washed the ditters right at the very spot where we are now.

And he's bringing them all in. He says, Are we any better than they? No. That's what he's doing. He's not setting himself up on the pinnacle, you know. Now, he's determined in this chapter to bring the whole world in guilty before God, and you just watch him doing it.

And when he does, you're there, and you'll go home tonight knowing that you're a guilty sinner on your way to hell, or else you're a guilty sinner saved through the sacrifice of either one or the other.

It's just as cotton dried as that, isn't it? Now, watch him doing it, because he's really a wonderful preacher. The man who goes through Romans carefully will always be afraid to preach, because Paul was a great preacher.

This man. What then? Are we better than they? No. In the wise. For we have before proved both Jews and Gentiles that they are all under faith. When he comes to these conclusions, as it is written, there is none righteous.

No, not one. Why, that should level down all the religious folk in this meeting who are depending on the church going, and on their confirmation, and on their infant sprinkling, and on their attending the Lord's table, and everything else, my dear friends.

I want you to get this. Outside of Christ, there is none righteous. No, not one. What the word of God says. No, not one. Not a one in the faith of the earth. You know, when we get down to the end of the chapter next week, we'll find this verse.

Verse 23. For all have sinned, and some short of the glory of God. You see, in the first part, he has all the unrighteous people. All have sinned. In the second part, he's all the self-righteous people.

Not one of them has come up to the glory of God. They're all short of it. So that in the real sense, there's not one righteous. No, not one. Then he comes to this word in verse 11. There is none that understandeth.

Isn't that a tremendous statement? An unqualified word, isn't it? I think that the whole idea is that there is none that truly understand of God. You know, sometimes we talk about hell, and damnation, and eternal torment, and God dealing with souls like this for all eternity.

And you know, the great theist, Purjan, who of course was, and it seems to be forever will be in this world, the prince of preachers. He said, in my early days, I could almost have taken my stand on the side of men who didn't like the judgment of God.

Until, until I began to realize something of the holiness of God and the sinfulness of man. You know what's wrong with us? We don't understand properly the holiness of God. And you know what's wrong with us on the second leg?

We don't understand properly the sinfulness of man. You see, I'm just a character who's been through a tremendous part of this world. Unfortunately, I have been in damns where some of you have never been, and you may praise the Lord for your ignorance.

And you know, I've seen things, and I know things, that if they were revealed to some of you who were brought up in Christian homes and under the shadow of Christianity, it would shock your very life, wouldn't it?

You wouldn't believe it. You wouldn't believe it. There were sins practiced in Austria in a certain spot. And when men confessed them and put them on table, the GI in that district came to me and said, Willie, is this true?

Is this done? Is this hell upon earth? I said, you just don't know nothing about it, sir. You were there in a way in a part of the country. You don't know. Of course it's done. And I'm telling you, it would shock you, dear.

Shock the life of you. You wouldn't believe it. Supposing, supposing a moral, upright, honest, pure, untamed, I'm talking about, was by some means taken into one of these dens, and in a flash she saw what was being done in the world tonight.

I tell you, it would drive a man crazy. You wouldn't believe it. Supposing she got saved. And supposing she became a holy woman. And thank God there are holy women. Thank God there are. And supposing as a holy woman who had walked in purity with the Lord, she was taken suddenly to one of these dens.

And this thing was revealed. I believe she had gone for sex. But you know, not one of us is coming near the holiness of God, are we? The fullness of sense means to our holy God. You don't know, that's what's your trouble.

There's none to understand us. That's our trouble. We don't know. You just can't compare it. You can't preach it. You can't expound it because you don't know it. You can stand a thousand miles away and imagine, and in my vivid imagination, I can see that this holy God can do nothing else with this polluted sinful creature who dies in his sins than puts him out of his faith for all eternity into the damnation of hell.

And you know, I'm going to shock you when I say this, that probably the most sinful part of sin is when you bluntly reject God's Son. Now there's something you think that there's some, some meritorious almost.

You can listen to preaching, and you can be convicted, and you can be moved, and yet you can stand still, and you can back away, and you can turn your back, and you can walk out like Judas, and you can openly, blatantly reject God's Son on your goal to the deepest hell earth.

And I'll say this, you deserve it. You deserve it. Think that God's Son left heaven and in love for you, came down and went to Calvary, and went through that awful time of suffering, and shame, and ignominy, and pain, and agony from the cursed tree, and died that atoning death, and made the only sacrifice for sin, and defeated hell and the devil, and rose and came and pleaded with a character like you, and you can still certainly say, man, you deserve to go to hell.

You see, we don't understand. We don't understand that sort of thing. We don't understand the exceeding sinfulness of sin, and we don't understand the irreflectible holiness of God. There's none. Apparently there's none.

Oh, you can fiddle around for the rest of your days, but you don't commute. That's the world we live in. There's an unrighteous. Heaven, there's an unrighteous. None that understand it. What's this one, verse 11?

There is none that seeketh after God. I tell you, that's a great revelation, that verse, because I can tell you this, it means that God's standing out in the open somewhere, and He could be sought, but man is really lost, and never bothers seeking Him.

And I can always say this to you, son, if there comes into your mind or your heart the tiniest little thought of getting right with God, it wasn't you that thought it. It's the Holy Ghost coming and dealing with you.

And I'll tell you this, if God withdraws His presence, and strides no more, and knocks no more, and preaches no more, and talks no more, and calls no more, you'll go to hell as sure as you're on the streets.

You'll never seek God in your own life. There's not a soul in this building by chance. I'm never hoodwinked, you know, I never think that it's my preaching God that's God. I'm just not as soft as all that.

I just know that this is God bringing people to hear His words, never mind about the 5 -8 on the platform. This is God doing. Why we never seek God in our own life? There's none that seeketh God. You remember the lost sheep, my friend, thrown up, and thrown up, and thrown up, and thrown up, and thrown away.

Ah, the shepherd had to leave the ninety and nine, and up through the mountains, from the river, down to the rocky peak. He had to go every step of the journey to find that one lost sheep, the Lord had to seek to save that which was lost.

We've a conclusion. But this one says, verse 12, they are all gone out of the way. They are all together become unprofitable. See the word unprofitable, well that's a word that's used in the Greek for fruit.

It's actually what we would say every bar, every apple in the bar is rotten. They are all together become unprofitable. There's not an apple in the bar of humanity that wasn't tainted, and no use for anything.

They're all together become unprofitable. What's this one? It supports it, of course. There is none that doeth good, nor not one. You know, some people have a great idea of goodness. Can't have a better illustration than use the one I've used too often, the young fellow's back there, but you'll bear with me.

Some fellow just down the side there brought his mother in to see me one evening, and he was so glad she was coming to the end of the way she'd been treading. He said, Mr. Maul, do you change it with my mother?

Lead her to the Savior. His mother went to Maul and talked to him, and he backed out, and as he was going out of the door, he said, thank you, Mr. Maul, my mother's a good woman. I know what he meant, of course I know what he meant.

Then I'm an old-fashioned gospel teacher, and I meant to rub it into her, and I said, son, if your mother has rejected Jesus Christ openly for the last 60 years, she's not a good woman, she's a blitten sinner on her way to hell.

Who are you to, if you're a Christian, don't you think that God looks down sideways on you? If you're openly every day in the road, in the business, in the family, in the world, rejecting his son, there's nothing good about it.

You're a blitten sinner, I tell you. There's none good. There's not an apple in the bag, there's none good. Then the rich young ruler came and fell at Jesus' feet, and he said, good master, what must I do to inherit eternal life?

And Jesus took him up, and he said, write all upon me good. There is none good above God. You know what Jesus would say? He would say, I'm God. And I'll take any of us right up in the church on the subject.

And if Jesus Christ wasn't good, you come and tell me where he wasn't good. I'm challenging you. I'd love to know where you will find the new good in him. You know? There's none good but one God. Jesus was God.

You can't find where any wasn't good, can you? Our friends, these are conclusions that call rich. You young preachers and going out into the world, get them in your hearts. The folk you meet in the meeting, the folk you see in the work, all around us, there's none like you.

There's none that understand us. There's none that seek us after God. There's none that do us good. And then get it in your heart, no, not one. My, the congregation's a big one, isn't it? It's the world that we go to preach to.

A perishing, totally betrayed world. There's not a good apple in the barn, I tell you. My dear friend, you need the savior. And the only way you'll ever get in through the pearl-hung gates of heaven is being accepted in the beloved.

It's only in him we have redemption. It's only in him that we have life. It's only in him that we find righteousness. It's only in him that we get justification. Oh, we're getting down with that, so Paul can really do it, can't he?

Nobody's any bother preaching when they can follow Paul easily. Well, let's get these corruptions that Paul marks. We'll not deal too long with them. We're at verse 13. He says, their throat is an open sepulchre.

You know, there's something distasteful, there's something desolate, something dark about an open sepulchre. And you know, Paul had watched men in this world, and my out of their mouths had come things that were distasteful, things that were the very essence of God.

Their throat, he says, is an open sepulchre. Watch this, their tongues, with their tongues they have used to speak. You don't need to go along that one too far, you've seen it yourself. Yes, there's darkness and deceit, and then the poison of arse is under their lips.

My, there's not only something dark and deceitful, but deadly here. Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness, my this tongue of ours, and what destruction encounters. You see, what he's proving here, is that men everywhere across the world, through and through time, sin and word.

Sin and word, you know. Man, we do, nobody going to argue with me about this here. Man, we sin and word. Sin and word. Now watch this, he says, we sin and deed now. He says, verse 17, verse 15, their feet are swift to shed blood.