Tatham, Ernest: Riches In Romans-05-3:1-2 ~ All In The Sinking Boat

Thank you very much, and if you have your Bible, will you kindly open it to Romans chapter three uh again, the third chapter of Paul's letter to the Romans. I want to read the first couple of verses. American Standard Version. What advantage then hath the Jew, or what is the profit of circumcision? Answer, verse two, much every way. First of all, that they were entrusted with the oracles of God. Now, those of you who have been with us during recent Sunday mornings may remember that we've been sitting in on a sort of a courtroom situation, and we've been noticing that the prosecuting attorney in the first three chapters of Romans has been summoning three representative men before the divine tribunal. The first man that was arraigned and charged appears in Romans chapter one. He, you'll remember, was the barbarian, the raw, uncultured, untutored pagan, the man who has no Bible, who has never heard God's gospel. Bowing down to sticks and stones and gods of his own manufacturing, he is arraigned as guilty before God. On what count? On what basis? The fact that God has given him preeminently a revelation of himself in creation, not the Bible, which is never seen, but creation shouts out his condemnation, for creation witnesses to the fact of a, an almighty, all-wise creator. So this man is without excuse, Romans chapter one and verse twenty. However, let me hasten to say that he will be condemned only on the basis of the light which he has rejected, not on light and truth which he has never known. God is a God of even-handed fairness, and so the condemnation of the pagan who has never heard the gospel will be much less severe than the person who has been reared in a land of Bibles and has heard the sweet wooings of the Savior's grace and who has rejected it. Secondly, the moralist has been arraigned in the court. In chapter two, he's a man who scorns the pagan. He is much more enlightened. He has the light of a sensitive inbuilt conscience, but that conscience has never been fully obeyed. And this man, with his superior light, is more culpable, more guilty than man number two. Then in the seventeenth verse of chapter two of Romans, to which let us turn for a moment, the seventeenth verse of chapter two occupied our attention last Sunday morning. But if thou bearest the name of a Jew, ah, here is the religious man who rests in the law, who glories in his rich religious heritage. He is arraigned, and the question arises, guilty or not guilty. And the indictment against this religious Jew with all of his accumulated privileges is one of unmitigated guilt. Why? Because although outwardly he bears within his body the mark of circumcision, that mark that distinguished him from the rabble, from the Gentiles, and marked him off as a superior, uh, and privileged person, this Jew has never known the real meaning of circumcision. Unless the heart is circumcised, unless the will is dedicated, unless in actuality there's inward holiness, inward reality, the externals count for nothing at all. You can have a package that's beautifully wrapped and ribboned and labeled. The exterior is most attractive to the eye, but on opening the parcel, it's filled with vileness, it's filled with filth. And the indictment against the Jew in the second chapter of Romans is this, that only reality counts in the sight of an all-seeing and all-searching eye of God. And if the Gentile, the Gentile who bears no significant mark, the uncircumcision, if they produce the inward reality, then all the external marks of the Jew are invalidated. They count for nothing. He is not a Jew, says Romans chapter two, who is one outwardly, whose circumcision is outward, but he is a Jew who is one who is inwardly such, whose heart is right with God, and whose praise is of God and not of men. This was a bitter pill for the religionist to accept. Now this leads us to the outburst of chapter three and verse one. Cries the Jew. Wait a minute, Paul. Hold everything. Are you telling me that there's no advantage in being a Jew of the lineal line of Abraham? Are you saying that counts for nothing? What advantage then hath the Jew, and what profit is there in circumcision? And Paul, by the Holy Spirit, immediately answers that question by saying, much everywhere. There's tremendous advantages in being an inheritor of all that rich line of truth that flowed through the Old Testament. Much advantage. Well, tell us more specifically, Paul, what these advantages are. He says, all right, I'll accept that challenge, chiefly that unto them, unto them were committed, or was committed, the oracles of God. Now, what is he talking about? What does this mean? The oracles of God are simply a phrase that describes the Bible, the what? The Bible. But you say all the Bible wasn't written then. You're right. It refers specifically to the Old Testament. The word oracle occurs four times in the New Testament. It occurs in Romans chapter three and verse two. It occurs in Acts chapter seven where Stephen, speaking to the Jewish Sanhedrin, he says something like this, our fathers received the sacred oracles. The word is used in Hebrews chapter five and in First Peter chapter four. oracles. The English word oracle comes from the Latin word os oris, the mouth, the mouth. To receive medicine orally means to receive it through the mouth. Oracle means an utterance, a divine utterance, a pronouncement, a declaration, a word from God. And these Jews had received the sacred utterances of God. Every writer in the Old Testament, with the possible exception of Job, was of the seed of Abraham. Every writer, I repeat, in the Old Testament, with a possible exception of Job, was a Jew of the line of Abraham, from Moses through to Malachi. And these men were in touch with God, and they communicated the holy mind of God to that favored nation. Therefore, this was an added, great added deposit or legacy conferred upon Israel. So the Jew stood in a most advantageous position. The heathen had the light of creation only. The Jew had the light of creation plus the light of revelation, the revealed mind of God. Let me say a word in passing as to the how of the Old Testament. How did it come? Peter answers this in First Peter, no, Second Peter chapter one, where he says, and I quote, I think it's the last verse of Second Peter chapter one, He says, prophecy came not in old time by the will of man, but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Spirit. That's a verbal quote from second Peter one. Prophecy came not in old time by the will of man. My, how, how that puts an exalted value on the Old Testament. It wasn't the result of the religious dreamings of a lot of fanatical Jews. It wasn't a collection of myths and legends that had been handed down from father to son. Prophecy came not in old time by the will of man. How did it come then? He says it came holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Spirit. And that word moved is a delightful word. I understand in the Greek it's a nautical term, and it speaks, it has to do with the wind that fills the sail of the sailboat and buoys it and propels it along over the face of the waters. Holy men of God spake as they were borne along by the Holy Spirit. Just as you can't see wind, but you can feel wind, so you can't see the Holy Spirit, but you can feel the Holy Spirit, and the Spirit of God filled the minds of those men. The Holy Spirit that filled the womb of the Virgin Mary, and out of that miracle came the sinless Jesus. So the Holy Spirit of God filled the minds of these prophets in the Old Testament, and they spake as they were borne along by the Holy Spirit. That's how the Old Testament scriptures came. Remember that the next time you read them. Secondly, the what of the Old Testament. What is the what of the Old Testament? Our Lord answers that specifically in the fifth chapter of the Gospel of John. You know what Jesus said in the fifth of John to the Pharisees? Speaking of the Old Testament and the writings of Moses, he said these words, four words, he wrote of me. What? He wrote about me. That's John five and forty six, I think, if I remember. He wrote of me. In other words, what he's saying is that the great theme of the Old Testament was the Messiah. The great theme of the Old Testament was the Son of God, the Lord Jesus Christ. In the volume of the book, Psalm forty, in the volume of the book, it is written of me, the book, me, the book, a supernatural revelation, me, the divine human Christ, the glorious Son of God, the volume of the book, and me are tied together. Third, the why of the Old Testament. I said a word as to the how, a word as to the what, now a word as to the why of the Old Testament. There's a verse in Acts ten and verse thirty— uh, forty three I think it is, that reads like this. In Acts 10 and verse forty three, I see some of you are turning to it, good. It says this, and Peter is talking, and he's saying to him, give all the prophets witness that through his name, whosoever believeth in him shall receive remission of sins. That's the why. To him give all the prophets witness. To whom? To the Lord Jesus Christ. All the prophets bore witness to him, and every prophet in the Old Testament went like this. Every prophet pointed, and another finger pointed, and that pointed, uh, from different points of view, but trained on the same target. All the prophets bore witness to Jesus that whosoever believeth in him should receive remission of sins. The Jews then were the custodians of these sacred oracles. Unto them were entrusted the oracles of God. Well, then you say, uh, they were a highly privileged people. Yes, indeed they were. But you know, the tragedy of it was that they made the scriptures an end in themselves. Did you hear what I said? They made the scriptures an end in themselves, and they became swollen, swollen with pride over their possession. And they could quote the scriptures. The Pharisees could roll the scriptures off their tongues, and yet they were utter strangers to the reality and the power of those scriptures. It's possible for you and for me, my friends this morning, to know the scriptures and to be able to verbalize and correctly quote the scriptures and to be as cold and as barren as can be. Let me give you a word of personal testimony. I was reared, as many of you know, in a Christian home. I was, from my earliest days, I was made aware that this book was the word of God. My father had a family altar, and we read the word of God every day, and we kids had to memorize the scriptures every day. And so I was brought up with a, with a rather, uh, rich inheritance of Christian background. But I want to say this, that Jesus Christ never became a reality to me in my life until I was a boy in my teens, about mid-teens, and Jesus Christ suddenly sprang out of history, and he became real in my life. It's true, it's true. The Jesus who lived and died and rose again, I knew all those facts, and I could support them by quoting scripture, but he didn't become alive and real and vital to me in my experience until I trusted him as my Lord and Savior, and then I found in him a savior, a redeemer, a friend. I fell in love with the Son of God, and he became real, I repeat, in my life. And then I, I, I began to read the word of God hungrily, and, and, and the Spirit of God released an appetite within me, and then the scriptures became meaningful, and I, and I, I became acquainted with them. And a few years after my conversion, I entered a Bible school. I found myself among two or three hundred happy young people. Do you know, it became apparent as the months went on that I seemed to have a knowledge of the Bible that a lot of these kids didn't have, and this was remarked on often by the professors, and I was given, I was given a lot of, uh, assignments, preaching assignments, weekend assignments that some of the other fellas didn't have, and I could quote the scriptures, and sometimes the professors would ask a question of the class, and they couldn't come up with any answer, and then they'd turn to me and say, Peyton, you tell us where this is, or you tell us what the answer to this is, and I could usually do it because of my memory and so on. But, you know, I want to confess something this morning. I found myself among a lot of happy young people who didn't know the word of God like I knew it, but I became painfully aware that they had a something, a joy, or a something that I didn't have. And I had to come to the conclusion, or had to come to the conclusion, that I was a proud little rooster, a a smug little Plymouth brother that was going around and who knew the Bible a lot better than these folks, but these kids that didn't know the Bible like I did, I found myself praying with them, sometimes all night prayer meetings, or sometimes they'd go to twelve o'clock at night, and I heard these young people pouring out their hearts to the living God. I heard them interceding for missionaries with a fervor and a joy and an interest that I didn't have. And I found them aglow. They didn't know nearly so much as I did, so far as the scriptures are concerned, but what they did know, they were enjoying. And I, in my pharisaical smugness, was missing something. My dear friends, let me say something to my own heart this morning. Let me talk to myself. It's possible to have our truths packaged in neat little theological packages, beautifully wrapped, beautifully labeled, and in deep freeze. And we can have these truths put away in deep freeze in a beautiful package, while some brother who doesn't know and doesn't have the steaks, the frozen steaks that you and I may have, he only has a hamburger, but he's enjoying it a lot more than I am. You know, that's true. What you and I need to do is to take those steaks and those packages out of deep freeze and thaw them out and put them in the oven and cook them and then eat them and enjoy them. It's true. That's exactly what Israel did. They took their theology, they took the oracles of God, and they said, we've got it, you poor ignorant Gentiles. We've got it. Look at our deep freeze. Look at what we've got, all this mass of truth. Friends, they were living like religious skeletons, and these Pharisees that gloried in their rich repository of truth were stressing. And there were the bitterest enemies of Jesus Christ, sour, proud people saying, thank God I'm not like other men. May God save us from Phariseeism in all of its insidious forms. These were some of the advantages of being a Jew. They had the truth. And I think, friends, that Protestantism today can be indicted on the same level exactly. Rich in inheritance of the great truths of the Reformation and the truths of Christianity. Friends, living lives that are really empty and insignificant and barren of any Christian reality. Let's take the truth of God and use it. Every place that the s- sole of thy foot shall tread upon, that have I given you. We need to do, as our sister Trina said a few minutes ago, we need to make these realities in our own lives, cash the checks and enjoy the proceeds. So much for the advantages of the Jew. Now then, the answer of God. Look at verse three. For what if some were without faith? Shall their want of faith make of none effect the faithfulness of God? God forbid. Yea, let God be found true, but every man a liar, as it is written, that thou mightest be justified in thy words and mightest prevail when thou comest into judgment. What's he saying here? Well, some, some arguer would say to Paul, all right, but you see, Paul, while it's true that the sacred oracles were committed to Israel, are you unaware of the fact that many of our fathers disbelieved the word of God? Where does that leave us? The answer is this. Regardless of the unbelief of men, it does not invalidate or void the truth of those oracles. Shall the diamonds that are in the security of the bank's vault cease to be diamonds because the guard goes off and commits adultery? Oh, you say, of course not. Shall the securities and the pearls and so on, the valuables that are in the safety deposit box, cease to be that because the bank manager goes off and gets drunk? Oh, you say, that doesn't affect the securities at all. That's the force of his argument here. God remains true despite man's lack of faith. But then there's another argument that comes up in verse five. But if our unrighteousness commends the righteousness of God, what shall we say? Is God unrighteous who visited with wrath? I speak after the manner of men, God forbid, for how then shall God judge the world? But if the truth of God through my lie abounds unto his glory, why am I still judged as a sinner? And why not, as some slanderously report and affirm that we say, let us do evil that good may come, whose condemnation is just. Now, the wicked reasoning behind this goes something like this. You've told us, Paul, that it is human wickedness that has brought to light the true character of God. And this has been the silhouette against which God's grace shines forth. Right. Now, since man's sin and dishonesty actually enhance God's righteousness and honesty, therefore the more sin, the better. But Paul said, now wait a minute, this would make it impossible for God to judge wickedness at all. And every Jew acknowledged that God was going to bring men into judgment. So the argument that the more sin, the better, is a blasphemous argument. It's like saying that children should be encouraged to rebel and curse their parents. For all of this, you see, provides a wonderful background to display the patience of the parents, the long suffering of the parents, the love of the parents. So, the more they kick and scream, the better. Paul says, whose damnation is just. Don't forget it. God is going to ho- hold men responsible for what they are and for what they've done, regardless of his overruling in certain situations. This does not for a single moment encourage sin or give man a license to go on in rebellion against God. God is going to bring to book every man who's rejected his grace. Now then, look at verse nine. Now we come to a turning point. In fact, I think this is the summary of evidence introduced in verse nine, the summary of evidence of the great prosecuting attorney. Or to change the metaphor, it's looking at the X-ray plates and examining them in the light of reality. Verse nine: What then? Are we better than they? What's that mean? Are we Jews better than they, that is, the Gentiles? No, in no wise. What do you mean? That's an insult to my pride, cries the Jew. You're putting me on the same plane as those accursed, ignorant Gentiles. I, with all my rich background. Paul says, are we better than they? The answer is no. For we have before proved, we've before charged, as it is here, both Jews and Gentiles, that they're all under sin. Someone has said that this is an astronaut's view of the Earth. If you could take this globe and shrink it and shrink it and shrink it and shrink it and shrink it until it's the size of a billiard ball. There is no finger that is sufficiently sensitive that could detect the slightest ripple on that billiard ball. But you say, what about Mount Everest, twenty nine thousand feet high? You'd never know that it was there if the globe were shrunk to that. There wouldn't be a pimple or a wrinkle on it. It would be absolutely smooth. And here Paul is looking by the Holy Spirit at men in general, and he says, so far as God is concerned, there is no difference between the man who's six foot tall and the man who's four foot eight. There's no difference whatsoever. They're all under sin. There's the ocean out there. On a smooth, calm day, that ocean is flat. That doesn't mean that the floor of the ocean is all of the same depth or evenness. As a matter of fact, on the contrary, there are reefs out there, there are mountains out there, there are ridges up there, there are outcroppings there. Sometimes it's very deep, sometimes it's very shallow, but it's all covered by that vast body of water that levels every one of those ridges and protrusions. God looks down upon Jew and Gentile man in general, and he says they're all under the dominion of sin. And then follows the indictment, and in verse nine down to verse eighteen, we have a catalog. We have eight quotes from the Old Testament. You hear what I said? We have eight quotes from the Old Testament. Wonder why the Old Testament? That's obvious, because the Jew's glorying in his Bible. He's saying, the Bible is my defense. Paul says, all right, let's open the Bible. Let's read a little. And he quotes, beginning with verse ten, he quotes uh eight different quotations picked up in Isaiah and the Psalms and so on. Listen, as it is written, verse ten, there is none righteous, no, not one. There is none that understand it. There is none that seeketh after God. They're all turned aside. They're together become unprofitable. There's none that doeth good, nor not one. Their throat is an open sepulcher, and so on. It's a dreadful, a dreadful series of indictments that cul- culminates in verse eighteen. There's no fear of God before their eyes. And my friends, that's a crux of it. No fear of God before their eyes. God, who is God? Get out of my way, God, I don't believe in you. I shall do as I like, I shall think as I like, I shall talk as I like, I shall go where I like. I don't fear you. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. This country has lost the fear of God. Now, this isn't the fright of God, being a frightened of God, but it's an awe, an awesome reverential attitude toward him. There's a God there to whom I must give an account. There's no fear of God before their eyes. A dreadful series of indictments against men in general. Now, I know how some of you are going to react this morning. Some of you are going to act- react and say, now, wait a minute, preacher, you mean to say that this is all true of me? Why, my throat is an open sepulcher, with my tongues I've used deceit, poison of ass is under my lips, my mouth is full of cursing and bitterness. I want you to know, sir, that I don't use profanity. I want you to know, sir, that I, I don't commit adultery, that I'm a respectable neighbor, I'm a good citizen, I'm a kind father. Good. This is not a description of what you and I have done. It's a description of what you and I are in our hearts. The seeds, as I said before, the seeds of all this are in every heart, every heart. Murder is not, friends, pulling the trigger of a loaded gun aimed at my enemy. Murder begins in the heart. It begins with hatred. Hatred, vengeance, adultery, lust, covetousness. All these things are traced back the lion to its lair, and there they are, and the God who knows us through and through looks down into the heart, and he sees us as we cannot see ourselves. It's not what I've done, it's what I am, what I am potentially, and that of which I am as a natural man capable. Not very flattering, is it? It's anything but flattering. It awakens my resentment. I don't like to be told and exposed like this. God says, look, I'm doing it in love. I'm trying to show you, first of all, the depth of your disease and the seriousness of your plight. I've got a remedy coming. Oh, I've got a remedy. But first of all, you must learn your need and your utter bankruptcy, and then comes the summary in verse nineteen. Now we know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law, that every mouth may be stopped and all the world may be brought under the judgment of God. Do you know what that verse means? Verse nineteen. We know that whatsoever things the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law. Who's that? Israel. Okay. The law was given to Israel. The law was never given to the Gentiles. Got it? Law was never given to Gentiles, was given to Israel. Why? That God might test Israel under the most favorable circumstances. And if Israel broke down, then God says there's no use testing the rest. Ever have a blood, blood test? I had a blood test the other day. They drew off so many cc's of blood, took it to the laboratory, tested it, came up with nothing. Told the doctor, I said, the worst was you, probably you can't find anything wrong with me every time I come. Well, anyway, they take that blood. Now, after the test is over, the doctor says, you're fine. But I say, but doctor, just the minute you tested my blood, you did nothing of the kind. All you did was to take a few cc's of blood. Why, you left all gallons of blood in my body. He would say to me, well, I took a sample of your blood, sir, and that sample reveals the condition of all the rest. I don't need to drain your body of blood in order to ascertain its condition. I took a sample of it. That's exactly what God did with Israel. He took Israel, and he drew off so many CCs, and he tested Israel under the most favorable circumstances. Whatsoever things the law says, it says to them that are under the law, that what? That every mouth may be stopped, and all the world becomes guilty before God. God doesn't need to test the rest of the world. If the Jew, amidst all of his advantages, has broken down and proven to be an incorrigible sinner and guilty in need of God's grace, then the rest of the world is included in the, in the test, in the sample, that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world becomes guilty before God. Verse twenty: because by the works of the law, by the doing of the law, no flesh shall be justified in his sight. No flesh shall be made righteous in his sight. Why? Because by the law is the knowledge of sin. A lot of people think by the law, the law of Moses, the Ten Commandments, is the knowledge of salvation. Just the opposite. It's the knowledge of sin. It's like looking in a mirror and seeing that my face is dirty, looking in a mirror and seeing I need a shave. I break the mirror in a rage. How stupid. How crazy. It wasn't the mirror that put the beard on me. The mirror reveals that it's there. Your child is sick. You say, open your mouth. Put this thermometer under your tongue. The thermometer goes under the child's tongue or under the adult's tongue. The nurse pulls it out and looks at it, shakes her head. Hundred and three. My, my. Now, the nurse doesn't say, now open your mouth and swallow this thermometer, it'll make you better. What did the thermometer do? It made the child sick. Oh, no, it didn't. It simply revealed that the child was sick. That's all. By the law is the knowledge of sin. It's God's thermometer. It's God's scales. It's God's holy righteous standard. And I say to you Christians this morning in my own heart, never give the gospel of God's grace to a self-righteous person. Forget it. Give him a good strong dose of the law. That's what he needs, not grace. He needs truth first, and then grace comes second. The needle pierces the cloth and pulls the thread through. The law is like the needle. It pierces, it cuts, and it draws the silver thread of grace through. Law first, conviction first, a sense of need first, and that opens the way for the Lord Jesus Christ to move in and say, I'll save you. I died for you. I took the penalty on the cross, and I took the full discharge. This is the gospel, and we'll pursue this, please God, in our next study next Sunday morning. But in the meantime, I want you to see that the law closes a man's mouth, but grace opens his mouth. Grace opens.