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We invite you to join us for worship each Sunday morning at 9:30. You can download our service on iTunes or tune in for “The Good Word” each day on AM 1230 WSAL or on Hoosier Country 103.7 FM just after 8am. I’m using an outline from an author that pictures the courtroom setting. Let’s consider 1st:
- THE ACCUSATION. V. 9. When Paul answers his own question, “no not at all,” he is using a phrase that carries the same weight as his statement in other places, “God forbid, or may it never be.” Notice he says, in the 2nd sentence of the verse, “For we have…” Why would Paul say “we?” Because it was to the Jews God spoke His Word. You recognize the quotes from the OT Paul uses to further emphasize the claim that no one, Jew or Gentile is justified before God, rather all are guilty, and need salvation. Now see:
- THE EVIDENCE. V. 10-18. 1st Paul states:
- SIN IS UNIVERSAL V. 10-12. It is important to understand sin does not exempt anyone anywhere from its fangs.. Biblical understanding is the God-given ability to discern between good and evil. Sin also alters our view of what good and evil is. From a sinful viewpoint “good” is whatever benefits me most by satisfying my inner desires. I like the way one author states the Biblical truth Paul is teaching when he says, “Scriptures teach that it is God who takes the initiative. He is the One who seeks us, not the other way around.” Next,
- SIN IS UNGODLY V. 13, 14. Here Paul tells us that sin causes us to use our throats, tongues, lips, and mouth are all used to curse God instead of His intended purpose in creation, which was to praise and glorify Him in our communication. So how are you using the instruments God gave you to praise, honor, and glorify Him? Have you yielded your members to Him as instruments of righteousness? Or are you using them as instruments of unrighteousness? You and God know the truth! Notice also that:
- SIN IS UNAFRAID. V. 15-18. Sin shows no fear in its mission to destroy anything, or anyone in its path. The only thing sin fears is losing its ability to dominate a person’s heart! It will attack anything that remotely appears that it could displace sin as the driving force in a person’s life. Paul tells us 3 methods sin shows its aggressiveness:
- Sin manifests an anxiousness for warfare. V. 15. Paul sites Prov. 1:16 where Solomon is encouraging his son not to listen to the enticement of sinners to “lie in wait for blood, and ambush the innocent without reason.”
- Sin also manifests itself in an attitude of wretchedness. V. 15, 16. Ruin and misery are the consequences of bloodshed. The 6th commandment is “Thou shall not murder. God tells us that when a person takes another’s life without cause, the murder’s life shall be required as payment. Perhaps the most devastating manifestation of sin’s fearfulness is its:
- Absence of worship. V. 18. The 1st commandment is “You shall have no other gods before Me.”
- Remember to worship. God says it, “Remember the Sabbath to keep it holy.” As you know God gives us life principles for a proper relationship and fellowship with Him, before He gives us the commandments concerning our relationship to other people. When we do not set God and our worship of Him above all else in our life, we cannot have a proper relationship, or fellowship with other people! Paul begins
- THE SUMMATION. V. 19. Paul makes 2 major observations in his summation.
- “Those under the law” were then, and are today, all who have not yet come to Christ for salvation.
- The whole world is accountable to, and will be judged by God. Paul immediately gives:
- THE VERDICT. V. 20. Again there are 2 truths given by Paul. 1st Justification cannot be obtained by keeping the law. Even if one could keep the Law perfectly, obedience does not correct wrong-doing. All the Law can do, and all it is meant to do is reveal God’s Divine standard of human conduct. The 2nd major truth Paul tells us here that help us see why works can’t justify is that the Law makes us aware of sin. Since the Jews have had the Law from the time God spoke in on Sinai, and have continually ignored and disobeyed it, they are condemned guilty. Gentiles are also condemned under the Law because it has been made known to us and we, like the Jews, have ignored and disobeyed it since we have known it. Thankfully God did not leave us stranded in our condemnation.
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