Do you think you are better than others? (Romans 3:9-20)
Billy Milton - February 13, 2005
Scotland’s most famous poet is a man called Robert Burns. One Sunday morning Rabbie, as he was known as, was sitting in church behind a very posh lady with a high wig piled on top of her head, as was the fashion of the day. As he looked at her expensive dress, haughty demeanour and highly coiffured hair he had to stifle a laugh. Because crawling through her hair was a big louse! For all her wealth and social airs and graces she had lice! Rabbie went home and penned one of his most famous poems, “To a Louse”. It contains the famous lines (which I will translate for you), “O wad some Power the giftie gie us, To see oursels as ithers see us! It wad frae mony a blunder free us, An’ foolish notion:”
I watched a programme recently on cosmetic plastic surgery where one of the people operated on was an older lady whose beauty was fading. She decided to take drastic action and have a face-lift, collagen implants in her cheeks, injections in her lips and a few other bits and pieces. By the time she was finished she looked truly scary! Her face was so tight that went she blinked her lip twitched! Her verdict? Wonderful, just what I wanted. It’s taken 20 years off me. My verdict? “Wad some po’or…..!!” She looked truly scary… but I don’t believe anyone will ever tell her that to her face.
Paul isn’t so squeamish about the truth. Today, as he reaches the conclusion of his opening argument he wants to make absolutely sure that we all “see oorsells as God sees us” and to help us to avoid “blunders and foolish notions” as to where we stand before God. You’ll remember that in ch 1 he has argued very forcefully that the Gentiles are sinners and without excuse. And, in ch 2, just as the Jewish readers were perhaps growing a bit smug, he hit them with a broadside and accused them of becoming complacent in their religious duties to the point that the Law had become more important than God himself. Remember we spoke about ritual verses reality in our lives as well? How does God see us? Well, just in case anyone thinks they have not been covered in ch 1&2 he states quite clearly in vv10-11 “There is no-one righteous, not even one; there is no-one who understands; no-one who seeks God. All have turned away..”
Someone said to me recently that they were finding the opening chapters of Romans quite hard to handle. “Paul is being very negative, don’t you think?” I can understand that comment but I have to disagree. Think of it this way. If you went to the doctor with a big lump in your breast how would you rather she responded? Dismissive and light hearted or serious and thorough?
I know the response I’d prefer because one could lead to my death and the other could lead to my cure. Paul is diagnosing our problem here with the consummate skill of a master surgeon so that every one of us knows where we stand before God, and after today he will begin to proscribe the cure for the problem - what we need to do to get right with God.
This morning, regardless of how we see ourselves, we are going to see what God’s opinion is… and right now it’s not that flattering. READ vv10-18 This is a serious verdict about humanity and in today’s PC climate it’s difficult to tell people that this is where we all stand before God. Bible scholars refer to this as the total depravity of man but I would guess that many of us don’t actually believe this doctrine. “Are you saying that someone like Bob Geldoff for instance who doesn’t profess any particular allegiance to God but does a lot of good for humanity, particularly poor people, will not be found worthy on judgment day?” Well I’m not saying that …but the Bible does. How can anyone ever turn to Christ for salvation if they don’t believe, or even worse, if we don’t believe, that they need a Saviour? Paul wants us to know, and to accept, that we are sick. In fact worse, we are terminally ill. And the disease we have is sin. And the only cure is the gospel message. Sick sinners need a Saviour not a spiritual plaster.
The trouble is that sin has got such a grip on us that we just cannot break its hold. EXAMPLE OF ME PLAYING RUGBY and almost drowning under a maul, powerless to move a muscle. That’s what sin is like with us. It overpowers us until we just feel that we’re drowning in sin. I know that many of you here will be able to identify with that sentiment. Its not that you want to sin, its just that you feel powerless not to. I saw a TV programme a while ago about a man who had powerful paedophile urges. He went to his psychiatrist and begged him to help him because he just knew he was eventually going to abuse a child and, and this is what stopped me in my tracks, he said he was powerless to stop himself. Sin was completely his master and he knew it.
To illustrate just how hopeless our condition is Paul says 5 things about us:
1. There is not one who understands (v11)
I am amazed at the genius of mankind – the architecture; the inventions; the artistic abilities. We, as a species, are absolutely amazing. The Bible is not saying otherwise. What it is questioning is not our brains but our minds. Paul in Romans 12 instructs us to be “transformed by the renewing of our minds”. The Bible says that the person outside of Christ has a DEPRAVED MIND (a mind that is bereft of the true knowledge of God). They don’t have a depraved brain, in fact they may have a very good brain. But when God saves us he begins to illuminate our understandings and gives us a brand new mind. Then we can begin to use our intellect for him.
But, whilst I stand in awe of man’s genius in so many areas I also stand amazed at how warped by sin man is. Mankind cannot understand the simplest thing that God is trying to communicate to him.
2. There is not one who seeks after God (v11)
Be honest, if you look at the world today would you say that: That there is no one who seeks after God? Religions are everywhere, churches on every street, religious temples in all lands YET God looks at all that activity and says, “No-one is seeking me!” Mankind is innately religious: But in all his religiousness, it seems that he is always seeking alternatives to God to worship. I Cor 10:20 says that the things that the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to demons and not to God. Religious activity does not mean that God is worshiped. That is why it matters so much which religion you follow.
I think it would be true to say that, every religion, except true Christianity, majors on one basic area that appeals to our human nature. They all have a work attitude. You work, and do, and achieve and maneuver yourself into a position where you make God your debtor. Only Christianity says, ‘I’m a sinner, I’m depraved, I can only throw myself on the mercy of the eternal judge. If God doesn’t forgive me based on the work of Jesus Christ then I have no hope’.
3. There is not one who does good (v12)
What we have to remember here is that the Jewish man would be quite used to hearing these verses read out in the synagogue since they are OT quotes. And when he had heard them read he would have agreed because they were obviously not referring to him but to the Gentiles. Now as Paul resets them in this new context they become a devastating indictment against ALL mankind. Not just the Gentiles. Martyn Lloyd-Jones wrote this about these few verses, “For to be ‘righteous’ is to live in conformity to God’s law, and ‘the best man, the noblest, the most learned, the most philanthropic; the greatest idealist, the greatest thinker, say what you like – there has never been a man who can stand up to the test of the law. Drop your plumb line, and he is not true to it.’”
4. There is not one who knows the way of peace (v17)
Our tongues, our thoughts, our actions – all combine to lead us into conflict. “The way of peace they do not know.” How long have we been trying to achieve peace in this world? How many organisations? How many treaties? How much money spent? How many lives lost? Are the politicians stupid? No, I don’t think so. Should they stop trying for peace? No, definitely not. But if we keep Christ out of the equation then the way of peace will remain elusive, even to the most learned of sinful men. Incidentally, unless we bring Christ into our personal lives then there too peace will be absent.
5. There is not one who fears God (v18)
The ultimate problem out of which all the others arise: NO FEAR OF GOD. No respect, no awe, no sense of accountability to God. The world is filled with people strutting their way to hell. Parading their sinfulness assuming there will never be a day of reckoning for their sin. I read about a farmer who was boasting about being irreligious. He placed an advert in the Times that read: “I ploughed my fields on a Sunday, I planted the seed on a Sunday, I irrigated my crops on a Sunday and I harvested the crops on a Sunday. This October my barns are fuller than any of my neighbours who went to church every Sunday.” Someone wrote in reply, “God does not always settle his accounts in October”.
What about you? Do you have a healthy respect of God? Do you know what it is to fear the creator of the universe who holds your precarious life in his hand? Are you ready right now to own up to your sinfulness and ask God for forgiveness? If you don’t own up to your sin and acknowledge the hopelessness of your position then you will remain exactly where you are – guilty under the law.
SLAVE SHIP: King visited (men chained to oars, lash & drum). Down below he asked each man, ‘Why are you here?’ Each had a reason: ‘Was in a crowd when crime committed and grabbed me’…enemies lied about me…ONE MAN: ‘I deserve to be here, I am guilty and receiving what I deserve’… YOU RASCAL, YOU SCUM why are you here among so many honest and innocent men? Release this man and get him out of here’.
You know a person is close to getting saved when they stop arguing with God. V19 says, “so that every mouth may be silenced.” Literally they ‘stop muttering’. I want to invite you this morning to stop muttering against God, acknowledge that his assessment of your situation is right; you’re no better than anyone else - and turn to him for salvation.