All Sermons

All Guilty and Condemned By David Calderwood
(Series Romans)

Why do you think it is that when you're challenged personally,
you very, very quickly move into defending yourself?
If you think about it, if you're like me, that's what happens.
We don't like being challenged personally, do we?
We very quickly start to become very defensive, even when we know we're in the wrong.
We'll still defend, won't we?
We'll still find, try and find something to excuse our behavior,
even when we know we're just blatantly wrong.
Something to excuse it, something to perhaps reduce the impact of it.
Why is it like that?
Why is it that none of us actually like to admit wrong?
We find it very hard, don't we?
At least I'm hoping to see some heads not here.
I hope I'm not just exposing myself here.
But we find it very hard to admit wrong, don't we?
He does.
Well done, Ashley.
Stand up.
Thank you.
Ashley spent most of his life at school standing up.
Some people would never admit wrong.
About anything of consequence, at least.
Why is it like that?
Why are we like that?
Well, I think very simply, and you won't get any any prizes, you'll know this yourself.
It's because we've got a natural tendency to protect ourselves, haven't we?
And we've got natural tendency to protect ourselves because what really happens is that
we want to see others, we want others to see us in a better light than perhaps even we know to
be true deep inside ourselves.
Perhaps even we want to see ourselves in a better light than what we know to be true inside ourselves.
Because I think the fact of the matter is for each one of us, if we're being a bit honest,
is that we each of us know there's all sorts of murky stuff inside, murky thoughts,
murky potentials that we really don't want other people to know about.
We don't even want to admit to ourselves.
And so when people challenge us, we're very tempted to try and move the barriers out to here
so we can think better about ourselves than what we perhaps really are and we know that underneath.
Perhaps even from time to time we wonder why it's like that ourselves.
Why is it that inside there's so many of these thoughts that just appear that are so awful,
given that I'm supposed to be a Christian?
Why is it that I do and say things that are so terribly hurtful to people
and so inconsistent with what I want to be?
Why is it like that?
Why is it like that?
Well, in the verses before this morning, chapter 3, verses 9 through to 20,
Paul explains why we're like this.
And he does that by taking us, if you like, into a journey, into our own hearts.
But first, let's recap a little bit so far his argument.
Paul's been asking the question, if you haven't got one of these yellow outline sheets yet,
there's still some up the back, I recommend you get it and use it.
Paul's been asking the question, who needs the gospel?
Who needs this message of salvation from God that Paul's so excited about?
Who needs to be saved?
That's the question we've been looking at for the last, this is the third week now.
His answer, every single person in the world who has ever lived or breathed needs to be saved.
Why?
Because, says Paul, nobody lives according to what they know about God.
Paul says, don't worry about how much they know,
because some people don't know very much about God.
Some people know lots about God.
That's not the issue, says Paul.
The issue is that people need the gospel because,
regardless of whether they get little knowledge or much knowledge,
they don't live consistently with that knowledge.
The uncultured barbarian, as we saw back in chapter one,
the uncultured barbarian is what the Roman citizens saw
everybody else in the world apart from Jews and Romans.
Their only knowledge of God was what they knew instinctively in their hearts
and what they could see in the creation around about them.
You've got the cultured Roman citizen who was proud of his God-given conscience,
a very keen sense of right and wrong that
they knew marked them out from the uncivilized barbarians.
Paul says, both these groups need the gospel
because even though they get different levels of knowledge of God,
neither group lives in the light of that knowledge.
Even religious Jews, says Paul, they actually had all sorts of privileges
and advantages as we saw last week because they knew so much about God
because they actually had God's written word directly from God himself.
They had heaps of information about God.
Do they need the gospel?
Yes, says Paul.
Why? Because they've not lived according to what they know about God.
They thought just being religious was enough,
just doing religious things would make them acceptable to God
in spite of the fact that right through God's word he said,
no, what's important to me is attitudes and desires and obedience.
So Paul says even the religious Jews need the gospel
and we can translate that to religious Australians.
So everybody from the primitive tribesmen
in the darkest part of the Amazon
to the most cultured and urbane of Australian citizens.
Everybody, says Paul, needs the gospel
because nobody has lived according to what they know about God.
You see, all that raises another question, doesn't it?
The question is this.
Why don't people live according to what they know about God?
Whether their knowledge is little or great.
Why does everybody get it wrong?
Why is it the Jews with so much knowledge still mess it up so badly?
Why is it that the uncivilized tribesmen
who can see that God has to be bigger than creation,
why does he always make God smaller than creation,
reducing God to a piece of stone or wood?
Why is it, says Paul,
why is it that we all get it wrong?
Well, God's answer to that question begins in verse nine
and that's the subject we're dealing with this morning.
Basically, Paul says if you look at verse nine
and if you want, if you're in that way inclined,
you get what the heart of the sermon nine,
you can rest your eyes for the next 30 minutes,
but here it goes.
Basically, says Paul, we all get it wrong.
We all fail to live according to what we know about God
because all people, look at verse nine, are under sin.
More accurately, according to the Greek text,
all people are under the power of sin is what the phrase means there.
So there's the answer in a nutshell.
Why does the primitive Amazonian tribesmen get it wrong?
Because he's under the power of sin.
Why does the cultured religious Australian moral person get it wrong?
Because he's under the power of sin and everybody else in between.
All are under the power of sin.
And Paul goes on then in verse 10 to 20 to spell out in detail
what it means to be under the power of sin.
So in a sense, these verses 10 through to 20
are an explanation of the chapters that run before.
He's telling us now why it is that people get it wrong and what that means.
And in doing so, he shows why nobody, nobody gets it right with regard to God.
And therefore, why everybody needs the gospel, needs to be saved by Jesus.
And the first point we need to note then as we start to unpack the text
as to what it means to be under the power of sin
is that it's something we won't easily accept about ourselves.
Now, as I've already said, we actually like to see ourselves in a better light than we really are.
I think you'll be very strange if what you present to people at a public level,
if you're not suspicious that it's quite different at times to what's inside your heart.
In other words, we all like to keep up an image with one another, don't we?
We don't, we want to have people think highly of us.
None of us like to admit, as I've already said, to those terrible thoughts
that lurk in our mind, those awful things that we've said and done
on a fairly regular basis, perhaps even.
I'm telling you for what, friends, it gets even worse when we start to talk about sin.
You see, as soon as we start to talk about sin, it defines us in an even more precise way.
When we talk about just bad things that we've said or done, it defines us with regard to other
people. And we can sort of maneuver and say, well, we're worse than that person, but not as bad as
those. When we start to talk about sin, it defines us with regard to God. Much more precise, much
less room to maneuver and soften what's said. And so I think what happens is, and what Paul's
suggesting here is, that there's an instant dislike arises within us. And we want to see
ourselves in a better light than what were described here. And that's why some writers
try and avoid these verses. Some writers, supposedly biblical scholars, Christian scholars,
look at these versions and say, well, it doesn't surprise us. It doesn't surprise us to see stuff
written like this by Paul. Because after all, when you think about Paul, Paul was just a twisted
person who was exceptionally negative and obsessed with this notion of people's badness or people's
sin. So it's not surprising then that you get a diatribe like this. It's only the product of a
twisted mind. And there's the conclusion, twisted statements. And so, so-called Christian scholars
try and avoid these verses and say, well, it just doesn't fit. It's not right. Paul's got it wrong.
But they're wrong. Because you see, one of the things you need to notice, if it's set out in
your Bible the way it is in mine, is that it's set out as poetry. In other words,
all of this is a quotation from the Old Testament. It's not Paul's idea at all.
It's simply a quotation from the Old Testament. In other words, what Paul's given us here is God's
conclusion about people, not Paul's conclusion. Paul's just passing on something that God's
already said. It's God's conclusion about people in general. Why does Paul do it? Well, you see,
Paul knows that if we're going to get a real picture of who we are, then somebody's going
to have to tell us. Because, says Paul, we can't trust ourselves to be honest to ourselves.
We can't. I can't trust myself to be honest with myself. I suspect and know things deep within me,
but I don't like to admit to them. I want to try and focus on other things, nicer things.
Paul's saying here, look, here's what God says, and we can't get away from it.
We won't like to hear it. We won't easily accept it. But it's God's conclusion. And if we're going
to deal with reality, then what we need to know is what God thinks of us.
That's what we need to know.
Often, we don't like the cure prescribed for some illness by the doctor, do we? He says,
well, you need to do this and this and this. We think, nah. Then the doctor says, now, look,
come here and sit down. I want to tell you about the illness you have. And he goes through the
details of it. What will be the result of it? And suddenly, when we see the illness and its reality,
we grab for the cure, don't we? And suddenly, it's no effort for us.
It's just like that with God's verdict on us.
It's something we don't like to hear, my friends. It's something that we won't easily accept.
It's something we try and scam out of or find excuses to write off.
But the truth stands because these verses really describe us as we are,
if we're being honest. And Paul knows, unless we face the painful reality
of how God views us, then we'll never come to God for the cure that we have in Christ.
I mean, why would you go to the doctor if you're not well, if you're not sick?
Nobody does that, really, unless you're some sort of hypochondriac.
So the first thing is, then, it's something we won't easily accept about ourselves. And I tell
you, when you're speaking to non-Christians, you can be sure they're not going to want to accept
that. Why would they? You're a Christian and you don't want to accept it. The second thing is,
we're helplessly, it means to be under the power of sins means we're helplessly driven and governed
by sin.
Now, Paul's arguing that everybody needs the gospel because we're under the power of sin.
Now, that seems to me to beg another question. And the question is this,
well, how serious is sin? All right, we might accept for a moment that yes,
we're under the power of sin. But how serious is that? How bad is sin really?
Now, many people today, including, I cannot believe it, but it's just a fact of life,
more and more professing Christians today believe that sin isn't that bad.
And certainly not as bad as some other Christians want to make it out to be.
Some, including Christians, are very optimistic that goes like this. Well, of course,
we're not perfect, they say. Nobody would claim that for a moment. We're not perfect.
We know there's a problem. But generally speaking, it's not as bad as what people make it out to be.
Probably, on the bounds, we're more good than bad.
Although they might also hasten to have, there's been notable exceptions in history.
That's the view you'll get from many who are professing Christians these days,
that sin isn't really that bad.
Some are more realistic, recognizing from history and from their own hearts that human nature is
bad. Yeah, they say there is basic evil. And in the last few months, there's been a number of
current affairs programs on that very issue. Is there really evil in the world in the conclusion?
I remember one, notably, where the jolly pagans were arguing for evil,
and the uniting church minister was saying, no, people are good. Last thing, how crazy is that?
So people out there do say more realistically that human nature is bad. They look at history
and they see it. But then they say, well, of course, what we have to do then is just get the
right sort of programs in place in society, educational things. And if we do the right thing,
then we can re-educate people away from their badness into goodness. So their diagnosis is
quite realistic. But then they go off into fairyland, because for goodness sake, you only
have to look at what's happening in 1999 or the year 2000 around the world to show that's
gobbledygook. In these verses, we have God's verdict on human nature and sin.
And my friends, it's all bad. What it's saying here is that sin is so bad that it has plunged
us into a state of alienation and broken relationship with God.
It's plunged us into a situation which we cannot do anything to change by our own efforts.
Why? Because sin is so pervasive, it affects us at every level. It affects us at the level
of understanding. Look at verses 10, 11, and 12, and then we'll unpack some of these.
There is none righteous. No, not one. There is none who understands. None who seeks after God.
They have all turned aside. They have together become unprofitable. There is none who does good.
No, not one. Now that's fairly clear, isn't it? You pick up the emphasis there, don't you,
that Paul's trying to get across. No, no excuses. Not one who gets it right. Not one who gets it
right at the level of understanding. In other words, unpack it and put a bit of flesh on it.
No one has a proper understanding of who God is. No one sees God for who He is and understands
what God requires of us and then lives in the light of that. Paul says just nobody does it.
It's our nature to completely ignore God. Or we're still perhaps to replace God at the center
of our thinking by other things so that we give our loyalty to other things, whether it be
possessions or sport or whatever, family, a whole range of things. Sometimes we ignore God. Sometimes
we simply replace God. And we try and find purpose and fulfillment through those things
rather than through the true and living God. In fact, verse 12 says,
with the whole of mankind has gone bad. And it's a very sort of graphic crass statement in here,
just like a bowl of fruit where the fruit has gone bad no longer serves a useful purpose.
That's what it says. They have together become unprofitable. Mankind as a whole has become
unprofitable to God because we're so affected by sin that we no longer can do what God created us
to do, namely bring Him glory and honor. So we cease to have any sort of useful function,
as it were, in God's eyes. Now friends, Paul saying that we're driven by sin, that is
sin drives people to remove God from the center of their thinking and living and leaves them
to do whatever they place, as they place. There's none who does good.
The result of that is that nobody even wants to do what's pleasing to God,
let alone asking the question, can they do it?
And that's the powerful conclusion there. Because you see, sin is such a beast
that not only do we not do what's pleasing to God, but in actual fact, quite naturally,
our sinful nature pushes to do the very thing that's opposite to what will please God. And
we do that without even thinking. We don't have to think about rebelling against God.
We do it quite naturally. That's what it is instinctively to be under the power of sin.
It happens at the level of speech, verses 13 and 14.
Since people's attitudes and thinking are so corrupted, it's no surprise then that their
speaking is so bad because the one is just the product of the other. What you say with your lips
is only the product of what's in here, or in here in the heart terms is how the Bible uses the metaphor.
Four different statements are piled up here for the effect.
Their throat is an open tomb. Now, that's pretty graphic language. In other words, Paul's saying,
imagine a grave that hasn't been filled in and the corpse is lying there
catred and rotten and the stench just makes you want to vomit.
Well, he says at points, that's what our speech is like before God.
That's how putrid sometimes our speech can be as a result of sin in our lives.
You tell me if that doesn't apply to you.
It's like an open grave. It's nauseating. Now, another point,
with their tongues, they have practiced deceit. See, another point, we can be so smooth,
so cultured in what we say, so sugar-coated, the words we use and the way we do it. But, you know,
we can do all that and we can still manipulate and exploit and deceive. That's what Paul says
we're like. Now, tell me, you put up your hand if that doesn't apply to you.
You put up your hand if that doesn't apply to you.
And another point, Paul says, the poison of asps is under their lips.
Paul says, sometimes you would, it's just like kissing a brown snake.
And the words we use are just full of character assassination and gossip and vindictiveness.
And we say things to each other that's designed to put other people in a bad light.
Now, you tell me if that doesn't apply to you.
And I'm talking now to you even as Christians.
More churches have been destroyed by this sort of thing than by heresy, I can tell you.
That's what sin, that's what it's like to be under the power of sin.
Friends, you only got to listen to yourself. I only have to listen to myself to know
that these words are precisely correct. They describe me to a T.
You only have to listen in your lunchroom at work.
Or when the family, the wider family get together for a Christmas through.
I mean, there's nothing families love more than coming together to Christmas to have a good old
snipe at one another, then they sit down at the meal together, and then they have another
good old snipe at each other, then they all go home for another year. Wonderful family get together.
Listen to the whispered conversations at work.
Listen to how the blokes talk down at the pub about their wives.
And you know that it's brought on. The Bible knows us, and it knows us well.
Look at the level of action says Paul, verses 15 through to 18.
See, when it comes to deciding what to do for most people, it's really
it's really a case of anything goes because look at verse 18.
There is no fear of God before their eyes. But what does that mean? Well, I think what it means
is this. There's no sense of accountability. And if there's no sense of accountability,
there's no restraining force. So people just do whatever they want to do, whatever the notion
takes them. So if it's strife, then they'll go for strife. If it's destruction and misery,
then they'll tramp over people to get what they want.
When I follow a car pouring black smoke from the exhaust, I know that I'm very mechanically minded,
but I know that when I say black smoke pouring from exhaust, most likely the car needs a set of
rings or new pistons and a rebore. In other words, even though the car might be really
shiny and clean on the outside and zooming along quite well, the trail of smoke is
evidence that there's something seriously wrong on the inside where it really matters.
In the same way, you see my friends, the trail of people's actions
show without fail there's something seriously wrong on the inside.
The trail of a person's actions characterize and demonstrate faulty thinking,
wrong loyalties, wrong commitments, or in other words, sinful nature.
Now friends, I hope you see something here of God's view of you in your natural state.
It's not true of you in the same way, now that you're a Christian, I'll come to that in a minute,
but it was certainly true of each one of us in our natural state.
It's true of every unbeliever in their natural state.
See, not only are people unwilling to do what pleases God, they're unable to do what pleases
God because they're driven by this instinctive nature that makes them go the opposite of what
God would have us do. It's a natural disposition. You don't even have to think about it. It's a
natural instinctive thing to reject or ignore or replace God. And friends, lest you be under
any misunderstanding, it's not just that people can commit particular sins.
It's far worse than that. People can commit particular sins because we get a foundational
dispositional problem of sin. Let me try and explain that using a different picture.
If I use the idea of a bad heart and a bad track record, the bad track record is the list of all
the individual sins that we do that displease God. But why do we do those? Answer, because we've got
a bad heart. There's something foundational, dispositional within us which gives rise to
all these other things. Sin has totally corrupted our thinking and our attitudes and our desires,
and quite naturally then that results in awful patterns of behavior.
And that quite naturally brings God's condemnation. Now friends, the consequence of all that,
very, very simple. If we had been left alone, left to our own devices, we're done for.
And that's why we need to be saved. And that's why Paul's so excited about the gospel,
because it's just the very thing we need.
Because Jesus has come to do for us what we could never do for ourselves.
And that is turn our attitudes and desires and thinking around so that we might be acceptable
to God. Well, it means those two things to be under the power of sin. Lastly, it means
that we're totally guilty before God. Look at verses 19 and 20. Christians have often
get stuck on these verses, but I don't think they're all that hard. Now we know that whatever
the law says, it says to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be silenced,
and all the world may become guilty before God. Therefore, by the deeds of the law, no man,
well, no person will be justified in his sight. For by the law comes knowledge of sin.
Now, let me say this. So far, Paul's been saying we've got a very, very serious personal problem.
But there's another element to Paul's argument in verses 19 and 20 that we need to get on to.
Not only do we have a personal problem, we've got a legal problem, because we're accountable to God.
The two verses are full of courtroom language, right? And it goes like this. The argument's
like this. Paul's saying everybody is under God's law in some shape or form, right? Some have a more
detailed form of God's law than others, and that goes back to his previous argument. So we can put
it like this. Some only have the law of creation. That's the only law they have. But they're under
that law, and they're accountable for that law. Some, like the Roman citizen, have a law of a
guided conscience, a God-given conscience, and they're under that law and accountable at that
level. Some are under God's written law, the Jews. They're accountable at that level for God's law.
But in the end you see, come back to Paul's argument, that doesn't matter, whatever the
level of law they had, because the law always will point a finger and say,
you didn't do it. If it's the law of creation to the Amazonian tribesmen, it will point its finger
and say, you didn't do it. If it's the sensitive conscience of the Roman citizen that will point
its finger and say, you didn't live by your conscience. If it's the written law to the
religious Jews, God's word will point its finger and say, you didn't do what God's word asked you
to do. Guilty, guilty, guilty. And that's all the law is able to do, isn't it? And that's Paul's
point here. The law can't actually help you. All it can do is point its finger and say,
you haven't done it. It's like me going down the freeway. If I see the sign for 110, the sign
can't actually make me keep the speed limit. The sign just means I don't have an excuse when the
radar unit picks me up for doing 120. That's what the sign does. It points its finger at me and
says, Calderwood, you've got no excuse for speeding because you saw the sign.
You're guilty under the law.
In the same way, see, God's law only points out that people have not obeyed
and reminds us every single day that we cannot obey.
And that therefore we're deserving of God's condemnation. So my friends,
Paul's point in verse 19 and 20 is this, that the burden of evidence just leaves us silenced.
We hang our head because we know deep down that what God says is right. We deserve his
condemnation because we haven't done what we knew we ought to do. And Paul's point is
we just stand guilty waiting for God's just and deserved condemnation.
Friends, there'll be no excuse accepted. There'll be no place to hide from God's condemnation.
There'll be no mitigating circumstance. Well, I was racing down the freeway because
I was on a way to a prayer meeting as ministers are so, you know, likely to use.
There'll be no diminished responsibilities.
No place of diminished responsibility. There'll be God's verdict. The law will point its finger
at you and say, guilty as charged. And you'll know in your heart that it's right.
Now friends, where does all that leave us? Put it most simple, we need help.
We need God's grace or God's undeserved favor. We need God to save us through the gospel of Jesus.
And I'll tell you my friend, if you're not a Christian here this morning, whether you're
five years old or 55 years old, these verses ought to leave you feeling so battered
that a sense of black despair is settling upon you.
Anything less than that and you've not heard what God's word is saying.
Perhaps for the first time in your life you're starting to come to terms with God's verdict of
you. And perhaps for the first time in your life you know and are hearing God's verdict actually
lines up with what you know to be true in the inside that nobody else knows about.
And that'll be a frightening experience my friend, if that's you.
Because not only are you seeing God's verdict, but you're starting then to sense the implication
of God's verdict. That you are guilty as charged and deserving of God's condemnation.
And my friend, I don't know how you describe black despair, but if you're not a Christian
that's got to be getting awful close to it.
But if you are a Christian, you'll be forced to see once again, and so many of you are this
morning, which is wonderful, you'll be forced to see that you've escaped God's wrath, not because
of anything that you've done, but only because of what Christ has done for you and is doing in you.
He has taken you and changed you and freed you from the power of sin. And that's the wonderful
thing about the gospel is that God loves to save those who don't even want to be saved and who
can't save themselves. That's why Paul's so excited about the gospel.
My friends, that is what you ought to be thankful for if you're a Christian here this morning.
Question is, are you?
That's what you ought to be living in the light of.
Question is, do you?
That's what you ought to be so keen to tell your condemned family and friends and workmates.
Question is, will you?
Let me finish by reading Romans chapter 1 verse 16. Paul says, if I'm not ashamed of the gospel
of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes, for the Jew first
and also for the Greek.
Let's pray.