In the Book of Deuteronomy, chapter 5, God gave us the Ten Commandments. Just to briefly review these 10 principles of Godly living, here they are:

1. You shall have no other gods before Me.
2. You shall not make for yourself an idol; nor bow down to them or worship them.
3. You shall not misuse the name of the Lord your God.
4. Observe the Sabbath day by keeping it holy.
5. Honor your father and your mother
6. You shall not murder.
7. You shall not commit adultery.
8. You shall not steal.
9. You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor.
10. You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife. You shall not set your desire on your neighbor’s house or land...or anything that belongs to your neighbor.

These 10 commandments are called “The Law”.

Now turn in your Bible to Romans chapter 3, starting with verse 19. The New International Version puts it this way:

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 the whole world held accountable to God.

Verse 20 goes on and says: Therefore no one will be declared righteous in God’s sight by observing the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of sin.

Here, the apostle Paul writes in the Book of Romans that when we study the 10 Commandments... The Law... and when we are faced with God’s perfect standard, we all have to admit that we are Lawbreakers. God has made it very clear to us here in Romans 3:19 and 20 that we all have broken God’s law and that none of us are able to obey these 10 commandments perfectly.

The questions for us then become, “Is there anything we can do? Is there any hope for us?”

If our answer to this question is to work harder at trying to obey the 10 Commandments, then we are sadly mistaken. But if the Spirit of God has taken us to Romans 3:19, then the Spirit has done His work and has shown us that ... through the law,we become conscious of our sin.

The law shows us that we can not, and have not, lived up to God’s standard... we have broken God’s law, and so we are all Lawbreakers.

God provides a solution for us in Romans 3:19-31, and I would like to share it with you by looking at it in three parts. Part one is “The Condition to be Faced”.

PART: 1

THE CONDITION TO BE FACED.

The Law of God was never given to save us. The 10 commandments were not given as a step-ladder to climb up to heaven on. Rather, the Law was given to pin-point sin; to define it; to bring it out of its hiding place; and to show us how enormous and how immense our problem is:
To show some of us who never believe we have a problem that in actual fact we do:

To show us that the wonderful good news can only be understood against the background of the bad news:

To understand that the provision that God has made is only clear to the person who understands the awfulness of their condition.

So if you will turn back to Romans chapter 1 and notice Paul’s great declaration of the Gospel which begins in verse 16 where he says

I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes...

Paul sets out this glorious theme... This tremendous declaration of good news. And it is like setting a sparkling diamond on the black velvet of the condition of men and women outside of Christ. Indeed, the gospel’s significance may only be understood, adopted, and discovered when first we have been made to see, by the Spirit of God, that we are sinful. And the reason that many of us are not effective in proclaiming the gospel, and the very reason that some of us remain in our sin, is that we only share half the gospel... we only share the part about God saving us. We leave out the part about just how sinful we all really are. When we leave out the sinful part, people do not know why they need Jesus. And there are many, many people who attend churches who do not know they are sinners.

This explains why some people who are engaging in religious activity have no assurance that the wonderful good news of the gospel applies to them and to their life.

So to understand the gospel, we must include all that the Bible includes... the good, the bad, and the ugly... no matter how uncomfortable it makes us feel and no matter how unappetizing it may be. We must include everything that the Bible includes.

This is exactly what the apostle Paul does. As soon as Paul says he is delighted to proclaim the good news, he goes right into the bad news... even though it is truly bad news! It is as bad as it gets!

What does he say in verse 18 of chapter 1? The reason, he says, that he is so glad to have this good news is because of the bad news:

The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness...

The wrath of God... and that means God’s anger... is not some uncontrollable emotional outburst. It is not like the anger you and I have here on earth. God’s anger is different because God is absolutely pure and absolutely holy... therefore God cannot tolerate that which is not pure or unholy. That is why the Old Testament prophets say that God can not even look upon sin.

God’s reaction to sin is the out-pouring of His wrath. He reveals His wrath as a reaction to the godlessness and the wickedness which comes up from the earth to His throne in heaven. God does not tolerate sin in any way. He does not excuse sin. His reaction to sin is to pour out His wrath against two things. Number one, God pours out his wrath against godlessness. Number two, God pours out his wrath against wickedness. We see this in Romans 1:18 which says it clearly: ...the wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against the... number one... godlessness... and then number two wickedness of men who suppress the truth...

Now the order of these two key words is important here. Because wickedness is the by-product of godlessness. When men and women are godless, they will then be wicked. The reason for the wickedness of our society is because people are godless. That is what the Bible says... I am not making this up! Most people have rejected God and are godless. Even those who say they believe in God; so many of them reject the one true God of the Bible. They reject the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Many people, who use the word GOD, do not know what they are saying. God for them is some kind of cosmic principle; God is the earth; God is this, God is that, God is whatever you want it to be. So, even when they embrace the name “God”, they are godless.

It is this godlessness that allows wickedness to come into the world. Now let me work this out in your minds. People are not willing to accept the idea of “wickedness”. They know that they have some problems here and there and everywhere, but they say it is not because they are wicked. People do not like a word like “wicked”. It is just like a dagger stuck in them... they sense that it might be true so they pull it out and throw it away.

They may say, “Oh, it is not that I am wicked... no, no, no, it may be that I am uneducated, it may be that I am a little lost, it may be that I am a little wayward, but I am not wicked! And even if I am wicked, I am certainly not godless!”

But there is a direct correlation between a godless society and a wicked society. There is a direct correlation between a godless man or woman and a wicked man or woman. And because our society refuses to accept the link between godlessness and wickedness, billions and billions of dollars are thrown after the symptoms while at the same time refusing to acknowledge the disease. So many programs; political programs; social programs; educational programs; and financial programs are conceived at the highest realms of the land and they stand up and display their total unwillingness to recognize that the state of affairs is on account of godlessness. And they think that a little trip to church here and a little holding of the Bible there and a little bit of religion on this side and a little bit of good works on that side will somehow satisfy whatever deity we have to deal with.

Oh yes, our society does have problems, some people say, but they are not spiritual problems. Nowhere is it more evident that in the confusion over the problem of AIDS. Every sensible person knows that if we would live with one wife in absolute purity and before marriage live in absolute purity, as of today we would be able to prevent the further development of the AIDS virus. What is here is here, but there would be no more passed on. But since we cannot say to people that they cannot sleep with whoever they want; since we cannot say to people that homosexuality is wrong, we are left not addressing the disease, but only dealing with the symptoms. And we are exposing our children and their children to all of this because of man’s wickedness, which is due to godlessness... a godlessness which mankind refuses to accept.

So while men and women will acknowledge that there is trouble in the streets, there is lawlessness in the homes, there is pain and tragedy all over the place, they can not explain it. They shake their heads and say they do not know how all this could happen. Well, the Bible tells us how we got here. It says not only has God’s wrath been revealed from heaven, but also one of the indications and one of the expressions of God’s wrath is that when a society continues to turn its back on Him, God may choose to give that society over to its own desires. Romans chapter 1 verse 24 says: Therefore God gave them over to the sinful desires of their hearts...

Verse 25, because of their shameful behavior They exchanged the truth of God for a lie.

You better learn your Bible and you better know your Bible, so that you can explain to your friends and neighbors why we are in the predicament that we are in... because God’s wrath is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men.

How do you get a godless, wicked society? You get it from godless, wicked individual people. Isn’t that right? So that means the problem is a personal problem, not a society problem. You cannot change a society by external means taught from the top down. The only way a society is changed is by changed lives... One at a time... From the bottom of society up. That is why Paul narrows it down. In chapter 3, verse 10, he says there is no one righteous, not even one person. This means that there is no one who has a right relationship with God based on their own efforts.

It is easy for us to say that our society is not good, but that we are all right. We have our Bible, we attend church, and we are just fine. No we are not! That is what the Jews were doing and saying. They said that the Gentiles were a bunch of scum.
They said, “Man, do we hate those Gentiles! They are messing up society. All those godless people, but us, the Jews we are the holy ones. We have the Law. We are sure that God is going to accept us because we have the Law. We have the 10 commandments.”

And what does Paul say to them? Paul says, “Listen, you are in an even worse position. At least the gentiles do not even know the 10 commandments and they stand condemned. But you are walking around holding the very things that condemn you. Wearing them on your wrist and forehead. The very thing that condemns you. Who are you to judge somebody else?”

Who are we to judge other people? Who are we to condemn the society in which we live? We are the society. We are the people. We are the sinners. That is the condition we need to overcome.

Now I ask you this, “Is this the kind of message that people want to hear?” Only a foolish pastor would stand in front of a congregation and proclaim the word of God in this way. But without this part of God’s message, we can not see that the gospel is necessary. If people do not realize that God’s wrath has been revealed from heaven against wickedness, they do not feel that they need to be forgiven because they do not believe they are wicked. They do not believe in a God who would exercise wrath on the sins of men and women. So then you have no gospel, you have nothing to proclaim.

The reason some of us sit here today still in our sin is because we have never been brought by the Spirit of God to face our true condition before God’s righteous standard. Some of us who are wondering about where we are in our relationship to spiritual things are nowhere because we have never been truly converted by the Spirit of God. We have exchanged one set of external circumstances for another. We once did not go to church; and now we go. We once were not interested in religious things; and now we are. We once really did not care or have a conscience; and now we do. So we add all of that together and we say, “Therefore I must be O.K. with God.”

They say... I wanted to have a friend, and somebody told me that Jesus is a friend. I wanted to have a purpose and somebody told me that Jesus would give me purpose. I wanted to be free from anxiety; and somebody told me Jesus would give me freedom from anxiety. But did you even once hear Jesus say, “I have come that you would have a friend; or a purpose; or free from anxiety”? No. Jesus never said anything like that. He said, “I have come that you would have life”.

Now why would He want to give life to people who already have life? Because the life we have is not life, it is actually death. We are spiritually dead. But nobody is going to put up their hand and say, “Jesus, give me some of that life”, until first the Spirit of God says, “You are a dead man... you are a dead woman.” And this means spiritually dead.

When you think you are a really good person, those thoughts will keep you from coming to genuine faith in Jesus Christ and understanding how much you need forgiveness and how much you need the true life that Jesus gives.

Until you face the condition that Paul talks about here, nothing you do will get you into God’s Kingdom.

The purpose of the Law; the purpose of the 10 commandments, is to close our mouths. That is what Paul says in verse 19 of chapter 3.

The Law speaks… So that every mouth may be silenced and the whole world held accountable to God.

The whole object of the 10 commandments is to show us that we have broken God’s law and we must be saved from the penalty of that. What is the penalty? Is it something serious or is it something that we can ignore? The Bible answers that question when it says, “The wages of sin is death.” When we break God’s law... and everyone has... the penalty is spiritual-eternal death. So the penalty is very serious.

This puts us in the situation of not being able to save ourselves from spiritual-eternal death. We need somebody to get us out of this mess! We need someone to do for us what we can not do for ourselves.
Now if we have truly come to faith in Christ, this is a reassuring thing because we know that Jesus has gotten us out of this mess. If we have not accepted Jesus’ offer, then we are in a terrible situation... spiraling downward toward hell.

Paul has said is that it does not matter what our background is... whether we are a clueless pagan or whether we are a religious person ... all of us have missed the mark. Every person has missed the mark. Every person. Every person. If you feel bad that you have missed the mark... every other person has also missed it. Actually, feeling bad about it is a good thing because that will lead you to Jesus. It is the person who refuses to acknowledge that they are a sinner that has no future; has no eternal life; has no hope of salvation. Everybody has missed the mark of perfection that God requires. Romans 3:23 says it:
All have sinned and all fall short of the glory of God.

We all failed the class. The test papers have come back and everybody failed... everyone got an “F”, a failing grade. Someone says, “Well, I got a high F”. Or, “My “F” is better than yours... I was really close to a D”. But everyone got an “F”. The only person that ever got an “A” was Jesus. And He got an “A” so that our “F” may be erased and His “A” be put in place of it. God will then accept us because of Jesus’ “A” being put in place of our “F”.

But do you know than many people leave church on Sunday, thinking, “I have to bring my grade up”. There is no way to bring your grade up. We have all received an “F”... it is already done. There are no grades between our “F” and the “A” that Jesus got. Unless you are as perfect as Jesus is, you already have been given an “F”. You are doomed to failure; you can not change that... it is too late for that.

It is no use trying to get your grade up from an “F” to a D or a C or a strong B. If you work from now to the day you die, you can not do anything to get any grade other than an “F”. Until you understand that, you are in the most perilous condition. For until then you will think that there is something you can do to change your condition before God.

So, there you have the bad news Do you understand what God is saying to us in these scriptures? . Have I made a good enough explanation of the bad news? That’s the best I can do with the time I have.

PART: 2

THE PROVISION TO BE FOUND

Let’s go from the bad news to the good news. We covered “The Condition to be Faced”. That was the bad news. Now let us look at “The Provision to be Found”. It is the good news. Just like Paul, I had to spend time putting the velvet down, so that when I brought the diamond out, you could see how wonderful it is. This is one of the great problems and one of the reasons that people do not come to faith in Jesus Christ.

Speakers are up here on the pulpit holding up diamonds and others are thinking, “What do I need an “A” for? I am perfectly happy with a “B+” They don’t know they have an “F”. Paul says we all got “F’s” and we can not get it any higher. Well we better have some good news for this story or we are all in deep trouble. We do have good news. Verse 21 contains two fantastic words... But now... Here comes what we are waiting for. But now, what? Now here is God’s solution to our problem.

God, on the basis of His great grace, has provided a way for us to gain a right standing with Him. It is a way apart from the Law. We can have a right relationship with God... through a way that does not require us to keep the Law perfectly. Listen to what Romans 3:21 and 22 say: But now, A righteousness from God, apart from law, has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe.

All of my attempts to keep the law perfectly have been a failure. I know that. You know that. We know we are lawbreakers. So unless there is a solution from another source... from a source outside of what we can do... outside of ourselves, we are dead and lost in our sins. Only those people who have stopped relying on their own efforts; their own endeavors, their own deeds, their own resources, and their own religion will ever benefit from the solution that God offers.

If this right relationship with God, which is so necessary, does not become ours as a result of our own efforts, then how do we get it? That’s what I want to know. How do I get into heaven? That’s what I want to know.

What do I have to do?

NOTHING!

Don’t tell me “nothing”. I don’t like, “nothing” because “nothing” means that I am going to have to accept what someone else has done.

Well, now you got that right!

Then I won’t have any reason to boast.

You got that right, also!

In verse 27, Paul says, “Where then is boasting?”

It is excluded. There is no boasting. If you are on the road to heaven and somebody asks you, “How come you are on the road to heaven?” You say, “It is because I am a smart guy. I am a smart person. I am smart enough to exercise faith.”

No you are not. “There are none that seek after God, no not one. There are not that seek after righteousness, no not one.”

So on what basis are we made acceptable in God’s sight?

Romans 3:22 answers that question

This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe.

We are put in a right relationship with God through faith in Jesus. It is because of something God did. God by His grace at work in our life opened our eyes to see it; unstopped our ears to hear it; and suddenly we said, “This is it! This is good news!” Have you ever said that? The Bible says that faith comes by hearing the Word of God. You do not develop faith by yourself. Faith comes to you through the Word of God.

So Romans 3:22 notes that our right relationship with God comes from God through faith in Jesus Christ. Faith does not cause our right relationship. Faith is merely the conduit; the pipeline; the electrical wire; the vessel that transports righteousness to us. It is not by our faith that we cause ourselves to be saved. It is that God’s grace is transmitted to us through faith. The only thing that I bring to getting saved is my sin. The only faith I have is the faith that God gives me.

When I come to Jesus to be saved, the only thing I have in my pocket is an “F”. A big “F”.

“What do you have to show for yourself?”

“Nothing”.

“Well here, give me your “F”... I will give you my “A”.

There is something glorious about that. It is the glory of the cross. That’s the blood of Jesus Christ. At great cost to Jesus, He takes the punishment for our sins. The punishment was so severe that it killed him.

Romans 3:25 and 26 say that Jesus died to demonstrate God’s justice. And because God is a God of grace, He punishes His own son who is sinless, in order that we, who are sinful, can be declared sinless. We are put in a right standing before God because of the penalty that Jesus paid on our behalf. God gets justice and we get grace.

Verse 24 says we are justified. That means that God sees us “just as if” we had never sinned, because of what Jesus did for us. God remembers our sin no more. There are only two people who remember your sin. One is you and the other is Satan.

And here is the mystery about justification. God justifies freely by His grace. He declares us not guilty. When a judge in a court of law declares the defendant not guilty, all the charges are removed from his record. Legally, it is as if the person had never been accused. When God forgives our sins, our record is wiped clean. From his perspective, it is as though we had never sinned.

All of this is summed up in Romans 3, verse 23. First it says All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.

That means me, that means you.

Then 3:23 says that all of us Are justified freely by his grace.

Well, how do I get this? 3:23 tells us: Through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.

When we put these parts together, we see that we are all sinners, and God freely justifies all of us, through faith for all of us who believe in Jesus Christ.

We saw that there is a condition to face; there is a provision to be found; and finally there is a decision to be made.

PART: 3

A DECISION TO BE MADE.

If you have lived your life thinking that because Jesus Christ died on the cross all people are automatically forgiven and that all we have to do is to get on with living a good life, someone has been teaching you from a closed Bible.

In Romans 3:19 and following, we have the only message that leads to eternal life. It goes like this:

The wrath of God is being revealed against all godlessness and wickedness. We are all godless and wicked to start out with. Therefore I need to see that I am leading a godless, wicked life. Until I do, the rest of the gospel has no meaning for me. But when I do, when I recognize that I do not deserve anything from God, then I find myself saying, “Amazing Love, how can it be, that you my God would die for me?”

When we start with John 3:16, for God so loved the world that he gave his only son there is something in us that says, “I understand that. Because my wife loves me, and my children love me, I am a fairly loveable guy. So the fact that God loves me is not a big surprise.”

But when I realize that I am a wretch; when I realize that all my best efforts are dirty, filthy rags; that every good thing that I ever did; that every service that I ever attended; that every donation I ever made... none of that will get me into heaven. When I realize my sinful condition and I realize that God would love somebody like that...somebody like me! That’s a miracle!
That is why the Bible says it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. Because a rich guy thinks he can buy his way in everywhere. He lives in the right house, he drives the right car, he belongs to the right club, and so he thinks, “I will be able to do it.” He is proud of what he has done.

But the rich guy is going to have to bow down along side the thief on the cross and say, “I got and ‘F’ too.” And it is going to be easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a lady’s sewing needle that for this proud rich man to bow down and admit that he failed. So he remains in his sins.

To believe in Jesus means to quit believing in myself. It means to quit believing in my religion. It means to quit believing in my good deeds. It means to quit relying on anything that I believe would make me acceptable to God. It means to come to Him and say, “Just as I am, without one plea in my defense, except that Jesus’ blood was shed for me. And because you Jesus have called me to come to You, I am going to come to you.”

When a man or a woman comes like that, then the gospel assures them that they will be saved.

Have you faced your condition? Has your mouth been stopped before God?

Have you understood the wonder of His provision?

Have you made a decision? Have you ever decided to accept the “A” and give up the “F”? And if you have decided, have you ever actually done it? I urge you to. Today. Now is the accepted time. Now is the day of salvation. You can do it right now. If you sincerely want Jesus in your heart He will come in today. You can say this short prayer:

Dear God, I admit that I have fallen short of your perfect standard; I admit that I am a sinner. I believe in my heart that Jesus Christ died to pay the penalty for my sin and to give me the free gift of eternal life. In the best way I know how, I will follow Jesus all the days of my life. I pray this by the power that raised Jesus from the dead. Amen.