 Amen. Okay, keep your place. Of course in Romans 3 that will be our main text for tonight. So as you know we've been going through the book of Romans in the last few weeks and we are now in Romans chapter 3. So we have been going, we started in Romans chapter 1, Romans just to recap Romans 1 and 2 because Romans 3 just keeps right into the story, okay? So Romans chapter 1, Paul was talking about the Gentiles and how they're, you know, they're without excuse before God, even though they didn't have the law, you know, the law in their hearts, their conscience and their heart was a law unto itself. So they're still guilty. They're still guilty. And then of course in Romans chapter 2, Paul talks about, you know, the Jews and how, you know, the Jews they had the law, but it was, you know, the circumcision really, they were called Jews, but the circumcision is really a circumcision of the heart, of the spirit. So it's those who are saved, you know, he starts, he introduced this theory in chapter 2 about how circumcision isn't of the flesh, okay? And in Romans chapter 3 in verse 1 he continues this thought and he says in verse 1, he says, what advantage then hath the Jew? Because if you look back in the verse, the two verses before Romans chapter 3 he says, for he is not a Jew which is one outwardly, neither is that circumcision which is outward in the flesh, but he is a Jew which is one inwardly, and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter whose praise is not of men, but of God. Because you had the Jews who were just getting praise of men, they were outwardly righteous on the outside to show people that they were righteous, but he's saying the circumcision was of the heart. And in Romans chapter 3 he just continues this thought in verse 1, he says, what advantage then hath the Jew? Or what profit is there of circumcision? It's a good question, right? So what advantage do the Jews have? If they're still, you know, under God's judgment, if they're still under the law, what advantage do they have? And then he answers the question in verse number 2 and he says, much every way. He says there's many advantages. Chiefly, because that unto them were committed the oracles of God. So they had many advantages and the advantages stemmed from the fact that they had the Bible, the Jews. The Jews had the Word of God and that is a serious advantage. Turn your Bibles to John chapter 6. Let's look at this concept of the Bible being an advantage in your life as it was an advantage to the Jews. I'll read for you Hebrews 4 in verse 12 while you're turning there and the Bible says, for the Word of God is quick and powerful and sharper than any two edges sword piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit and of the joints and marrow and is the discerner of the thoughts and intense of the heart. Ephesians chapter 6 verse 17 says this, and take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit which is the Word of God the Bible, the Word of God is our weapon. The Word of God tells us. It's our weapon. In John 6 turn look at verse 63 verse 63. You know this is the weapon when Jesus said go ye into all the world and preach the gospel. This is the weapon that we were to take with us the weapon of the Word of God. And when we go out preaching the gospel it is our sword that we take with us. In John 6, 63 the Bible says it is the Spirit that quickened it. The flesh profited nothing. The words that I speak unto you they are Spirit and they are life. The Word of God is our life folks. The Bible says in Romans 10, 17, so faith coming by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. It is only by the Word of God that we are saved. And we need to remember that when we're out soul winning and we're getting better and better at giving the gospel to people and becoming personable with people and reading people and just being friendly with people and being a people person will make you a better soul winner but you need to never forget that it is the Word of God that saves people when we are out there. We say oh I got this many people saved. The Word of God people saved. Not us. We need to remember that when we're preaching the gospel because you will find people that will go out and they will give the gospel and they will tell all kinds of stories and analogies and all kinds of things and I mean I've been out soul winning with some people who that's why by the way that I'm just like we in general need to stick to the soul winning seminar of Verity Baptist Church when we go soul winning because it can get really strange. I've been soul winning with people where you hear a gospel presentation and you're just like I think I just lost my salvation. I don't know what that was all about you know I'm joking but I mean it's just like you don't even understand if I a saved person can't understand what you're saying. The gospel is simple right. The gospel is simple. It's designed that way. It wouldn't have been fair if God made the gospel so complicated that only the the most elite smartest people could get it right. So the gospel is simple. Let's keep it simple right and yes there's many things that you can do and better things you can get at it expounding the Word of God. We need to remember that it's the Word of God that saves people. That was the advantage the Jews had. It's the advantage we have okay and it's a huge advantage. I forgot the book tonight but I was going to bring this book that we had in our house and we have in our house and I remember this book it was written in like the 1600s. It's a great little book and it's about the testimony of this kid's life. He lives in like England and he's given this testimony of his life and kind of it's a neat little story. It's called the hedge of thorns but there's a part in the beginning of the book where he's talking about his dad and how his teacher used to make them memorize scripture because nobody actually had a Bible because it was just such a it was an elite thing to have a Bible and he talked about how he'll never forget the day his dad sold one of the two cows. This is a true story from the 1600. His dad sold one of their two cows to buy a copy of the scriptures. So imagine I mean just imagine that for a minute imagine having to spend half of your business or half of your net worth or half of your income to to purchase a Bible. I went and looked it up you know a few days ago you can buy a Bible for like three dollars. You know on Amazon the average price is like ten dollars for a nice King James Bible. It's extremely available and for that reason I think we take it for granted. You know I think we take it for granted. You know just when you imagine how many people throughout history have just not had this advantage that we have okay. Now this is a powerful advantage as well and we can share it with others turn to John chapter 8. Now I believe that and this is a theory of mine as well but I believe that one of the reasons for all these different Bible versions in the last hundred years or so is because the Bible the King James Bible has become so available to people. So the devil has to attack this. He must come at it in a way that that undoes this fact because everybody can have a King James Bible today. If you look down at John chapter 8 verse 44 we can read about the devil and Jesus says you are of your father the devil and the less of your father you will do. He was a murderer from the beginning and abode not in the truth because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie he speaketh of his own for he is a liar and the father of it. In second Corinthians 11-14 the Bible says and no marvel for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light. You see Satan has never operated in the way where he just comes out and he says look here's a book on Satan I rebelled against God. Here's my ideas and I think they're better than God's. See he's not trying to come up with his own ideas and his own theories and his own philosophies. He's taking what God this is what he's always done. He's still doing it today. We'll talk about liberal Christianity in a couple weeks and you'll see he's really doing it very well today and he takes what God does and he twists it just a little bit. And the thing about these false Bible versions I love New World Order Bible versions. I love it was one of my favorite documentaries even before I moved to California. I love it but here's the thing. I love studying all the details about the things that have changed and I love studying about how there's an agenda to you know take away the deity of Christ and there's an agenda to you know twist certain things in the Bible that that really attack key doctrines but here's the thing it doesn't really matter because the fact that all these Bible versions exist is enough because it's not like you're going to find somebody out there. Let me explain what I'm saying here if you're not with me you're not going to find many people out there or I've never found anybody that's like I believe the NIV but not the King James. You see what happens is there's so many Bibles that are just flooded out there a hundred hundred and fifty they've just created doubt of the Word of God. So most people unless you're saved and have studied it out most people they don't know all the different things that have been changed in all these different Bible versions but they're like just the fact that these Bible versions exist makes them doubt the Word of God. I've met several people like that many many people and if you go soul-winning enough you will meet these people as well. They just you know they doubt the Word of God they doubt the Word of God you say well we we only use the King James it doesn't even really mean anything to them because they're just they've been grown up with so many different Bible versions they're just confused about it all. You see so it's a very successful tactic and he didn't even really have to change any specific details all he had to do was show people that it must have needed to be changed and people all of a sudden if because guess what if there's one mistake in here if there's one mistake in here how do I know where it is? I had a I had a power plant a couple years ago and we found out that 10% of the power plant was rewired was wired wrong when we were building this power plant and the contractor and the owner they were arguing if it was 10% it was 50% and I was the guy coming in to fix it and I said forget about it it doesn't matter if it's 10% or 90% unless you can tell me which 10% is wrong I got to check everything that's the same thing with the Bible if there's one mistake in here and I don't know where it is I doubt everything but there is no mistake in here but when you throw out all these different versions it creates doubt in people's mind and if people think that maybe it's 5% wrong or it's 10% wrong it doesn't matter because then they doubt the whole book see so it's a brilliant plan he's always been a liar and he's always been transforming into an angel of light he's always been trying to pass off his ideas as God's ideas he's never come up with his own ideas he just wants to take as many people he knows he's going to hell he knows he is damned and he wants to take as many people with him as possible and and he's succeeding unfortunately in in many ways okay verse number three we're gonna that was a long two verses we'll go through these a little bit faster in verse number three so the Bible says for what if some did not believe shall their unbelief make the faith of God without effect still talking about the Jews he's saying what if they did not believe I they had the advantage of the Bible what other advantage do they have he said what if they did not believe some did not believe shall their unbelief make the faith of God without effect meaning can do they have the advantage where they don't even have to believe and look what he says God forbid yeah let God be true but every man a liar as it is written that thou might just be justified in thy sayings and might just overcome when thou art judged look he's saying that the Jew doesn't have that advantage if the Jew doesn't believe he's just as damned as somebody else that doesn't believe the only advantage that the Jew had was that he had the oracles of God committed to him which is a huge advantage I actually asked this question to a Baptist pastor several years ago before we moved as well who was you know the Jews are God's chosen people all this kind of stuff and I was just like okay fine you know I didn't really know about any of the end times prophecy stuff but I was confused logically about it if somebody died without believing in Christ I knew they were going to hell and so I asked this pastor I said if somebody dies of a Jew dies and does not believe in Jesus Christ where are they going and he said well hell like what advantage what advantage is there that's the question that they can't answer there is no advantage other than that they were committed the oracles of God and then Jesus came and they didn't believe him so they lost that advantage as well alright verse number five but if our unrighteousness commend the righteousness of God what shall we say is God unrighteous who taketh vengeance I speak as a man now I love when Paul does this type of thing you see this I speak as a man this to me proves that Paul knows he's writing under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit because he asks a question here he asks a question it's kind of a tongue-in-cheek question and he wants to clarify that the Holy Spirit would obviously know the answer to this question and he says is God unrighteous who taketh vengeance because obviously God is not unrighteous who taketh vengeance because God is holy God is holy now turn to Psalm 103 and I'll read for you 1 Samuel 2 verses 2 and 1 Samuel 2 verses 2 and we see that God is holy this is another thing that we need to explain to people when we're out soul winning because this is a huge problem in America today people have the wrong view of God you are going to meet people who may have grown up in a Christian home we met some people like this this weekend it's almost better to find somebody who's unchurched I say these days because people have a false God a false idea of God in their head God is holy and he must judge sin that's what the Bible is saying here he has to in 1 Samuel 2 2 the Bible says there's none hold none holy as the Lord for there is none beside thee neither is there any like is there any rock like our God and Psalm 103 verse 1 a Psalm of David bless the Lord oh my soul and all that is within me bless his holy name now turn to Romans 12 that means whatever God does is right so when people think that oh that sounds mean a mean God would never throw anyone into hell God is holy God is judgment the Bible tells us this we may not understand this today but you know what it's okay to not understand everything by the way you know people get themselves into trouble when they think that every single deep thing of the mind of God they have to understand that's where you see all these people getting into these weirdo doctrines on the Trinity and all this kind of stuff hey when the Bible says you know it's three persons in one it's three and one I I'm good I'll ask God about it when I get to heaven hey how exactly does that work how do those gears fit together it's when you start coming up with analogies on your own and you try to fit it into your own human logic and those types of things look the gospel simple how to get to heaven is simple we can understand that but there's some deep things in this book we don't have to be so arrogant to think that we would just understand everything all the time okay so look just remember whatever God does is right God is holy in Romans verse 12 we see that God you know the Paul said at the end of verse 5 is God unrighteous is God unrighteous who take a vengeance I speak as a man God will take vengeance in Romans 12 verse 19 we see this dearly beloved avenge not yourselves but rather give place unto wrath for it is written vengeance is mine I will repay say at the Lord God will punish sin and those who are not saved are going to be punished in hell and that's another thing that you're going to find that many people don't believe when you're out soul winning this is a good soul winning lesson Romans chapter 3 because really Romans chapter 1 Romans chapter 2 and Romans chapter 3 Paul is just given this huge soul winning lesson is what he's doing okay God will punish sin and those that don't believe will be punished in hell turn to Luke 16 let's look at that you ever if you go soul winning enough you're gonna you're gonna find this guy too you're gonna find this guy the guy that you say you know you get to the hell verses and the guy is gonna be like man hell's right hell's right now man this is hell man right here bro we're living in hell dude I mean you guys you guys are laughing cuz you met this guy we've all met this guy you know and I feel bad for that guy because obviously things are not going great for you if you think like man bro this is hell bro dude bro I had a conversation with Garrett one time for like 10 minutes and all we could say was dude and bro and we did it no but seriously you're gonna find this guy okay you're gonna find this guy now let's look at this story in Luke chapter 16 verse 19 we're gonna start reading we're gonna read the whole thing is I want to explain some things about hell and you can take people to these verses to explain hell because it's important it's scary and it should be scary okay look Luke 16 verse 19 there was a certain rich man which was clothed in purple purple and fine linen and fared sumptuously every day and there was a certain beggar named Lazarus which was laid at his gate full of sores and desiring to be fed with the crumbs which fell from the rich man's table more over the dogs came and licked his sores and it came to pass that the beggar died and was carried by the angels into Abraham's booze booze him heaven the rich man also died and was buried and he lift up his eyes being in torments immediately he was in hell you see that that's the first thing there's none of this you sleep and then whenever else you know you you wake up later he immediately he lift up his eyes and he was being he was in torments right away and seeing Abraham a far off and Lazarus in his booze him and he cried and said father Abraham have mercy on me and send Lazarus that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue for I am tormented in this flame he's burning he's burning and he just wants to be cooled off but Abraham said son remember that down my lifetime received that good things and likewise Lazarus evil things but now he has comforted and now are tormented and beside all this between us and you there's a great golf fixed so that they which would pass from hence to you cannot neither can they pass to us that would come from thence look there's no getting out so to that guy that says that to you you need to say you know what man are you on fire right now are you in flames burning in pain right now no you're not then he said I pray thee therefore father that thou would it's send him to my father's house he knows he can't get out but he wants his family to to not go there okay now look there's these other people that are like oh I'm just gonna go to hell because that's where all my friends are gonna be your friends don't want you there if your friends are in hell they're there for about a millisecond before they realized that they wanted you to not go there this guy immediately he knows he can't get out and he immediately just wants someone to go tell his family someone get back there tell my family I have five brethren he said that he may testify under them lest they also come into this place of torment Abraham saith unto him they have Moses and the prophets they have this let them hear them and he said nay father Abraham but if one went unto them from the dead they will repent and he said unto them if they hear not Moses and the prophets neither will they be persuaded though one rose from the dead belief folks is a heart issue it's a heart issue I used to be one of these people that was like you know what if we could just find you know before I was saved I was like that we just find Noah's Ark and we could just find all this stuff everyone would believe in God no Jesus did miracles in front of the Pharisees and they still didn't believe and then eventually they could not believe it's a heart issue their heart is hard so even though somebody came back from the dead Abraham says to them they're not gonna believe anyway because he didn't believe the Bible his heart's not right he wouldn't believe anyway so Revelation 14 let's look at one more thing on hell and if this is hell Revelation 14 in verse 11 the Bible says this and the smoke of their torment ascended up forever and ever and they have no rest day or night who worshiped the beast in his image and whosoever receive it the mark of his name talking about people that are damned to hell there's no rest and it's forever it never ends imagine I mean you can't even wrap your head around it you can't even wrap your head around it imagine no rest imagine that you know people torture people that way you know that's like a psychological form of torture I got a quote here from psychological psychology today sleep deprivation is an especially insidious form of torture because it attacks the deep biological functions at the core of a person's mental and physical health it is less overtly violent than cutting off someone's finger but it can be far more damaging and painful if pushed to extremes now imagine this extremes of never having any rest and burning while you never have any rest this is not hell no matter how bad your bill situation is or whatever you have a fundamental misunderstanding of the vengeance of God if you think that this could even be close to hell so feel free to have a couple verses that can explain this to people from the Bible if you get that if you run across that that guy you know God is a perfect judge folks and he will take vengeance so the answer to Paul's you know question is is God unrighteous that take a vengeance no you know God is righteous God is the perfect judge and everything that he does is right look at verse number seven Romans chapter three verse number seven for if the truth of God hath more abounded through my lie unto his glory why yet am I also judged as a sinner and not rather as we be slanderously reported as some affirm that we say let us do evil that good may come whose damnation is just what then are we better than they know in no wise for we have before proved both Jews and Gentiles that they are all under sin this is chapters one and two right here both Jews and Gentiles are under sin this wraps up chapters one and two I love how he just repeats these things and he he goes into these long essays about the Gentiles and these long essays about the Jews and he just repeats it for us again and wraps it up right here as it is written there is none righteous no not one there is none that understand it there is none that seeketh after God they are all gone out of the way they are together become unprofitable there is none that do with good no not one then he goes into you know verses 13 and through 18 he talks about how you know their throat is an open sepulchre you know their feet are you know he's kind of recapping some of the Romans chapter one and if we go down to verse number 19 we can continue there the Bible says now we know that what's what things so ever the law sayeth that sayeth to them who are under the law that every mouth be stopped and all the world become guilty before God therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight he says it again for by the law is the knowledge of sin so that's the point of the law is the night is that give us the knowledge of sin before we are saved but now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested being witnessed by the law and the prophets even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all that upon them that believe for there is no difference just repeating this between Jew and Gentile its faith in Jesus Christ Jew or Gentile for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God it's the second time he says it you know the Bible repeats many important things two or three times you know he says not of works in Ephesians two eight through nine he repeats there as well for by grace are you saved through faith and not of yourselves not of yourselves it is the gift of God not of works he says it twice just to make sure we don't get it or we don't miss it and then in verse number twenty five whom being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus whom God has set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are passed through the forbearance of God propitiation means appeasement or atonement appeasing God's wrath towards you God's wrath towards sin now imagine if Paul is just wrapping everything up in verses twenty six twenty seven and twenty eight imagine she was just right he just gave this awesome essay on chapter one and chapter two and then he gets up with his microphone and he says to declare I say at the beginning at this time his righteousness that he might be just and the justifier of him that's you which believeth in Jesus where is boasting then sounds a lot like Ephesians two where is boasting that is excluded by what law of works nay but by the law of faith we get it therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law like drop that's it right there the mike doesn't work anyway that's the whole thing that's all of chapters one two and three right there therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law not with a little bit of the deeds of the law not with some of the deeds of the law without the deeds of the law that's it that's any man should boast it sounds a lot like Ephesians two eight through nine it's because it's the same holy spirit that wrote it that's why and then down in verse number 29 we see this is he the God of the Jews only and he just goes in it just kind of beats down this this Jew and Gentile thing a little bit more I mean how you could be unclear about the book of Romans and you could pull works out of the book of Romans is shocking to me truly it is you see the God of the Jews only is he not also of the Gentiles yes of the Gentiles also seeing it is one God which shall justify the circumcision by faith and the uncircumcision through faith so there's the Jews and the Gentiles do we then make void the law through faith God forbid yay we establish the law now throughout Romans we're gonna learn a lot more about the law okay because our salvation is not through the law it's not through our obedience to the law it's not through our works we know that right so what is the point of the law and he's really gonna get deep into some of that stuff in in some later chapters but we can talk a little bit about it now first of all the law is there to convict us before we are saved it's there to show us our sin and then after we are saved the law is there to establish us so we're convicted by it and then we're established by it now when I became a Baptist many years ago I used to be Lutheran I got saved I got into a Baptist church many people thought and I even thought this myself about Baptists so I can see both sides of this I can remember both sides of this but many people thought that we were under some legalistic system when we became Baptist because people saw changes in us and I always wondered that about the Baptist because I I would argue eternal security 15 years ago with a co-worker of mine and I was Lutheran and he was Baptist and we would argue eternal security and we never agreed but I little did I know he thought I was unsaved he never told me that thanks a lot buddy but what I always thought about the Baptist was it's really strange that they believe that they could never do anything to lose their salvation yet they're like they their their wives are dressing modestly they they go out sharing the gospel with people and I always knew that that was something that we should be doing always even before I was saved because that's one of the simple things in the Bible go ye into all the world and preach the gospel that's not rocket surgery you know what I'm saying I mean you don't have to be saved to understand that one and but I was always wondering so he doesn't think that he can do anything to lose a salvation yet there he doesn't drink he doesn't do these things and he's living a clearly different life than everybody else yet I grew up you know in a Lutheran home and I know many Catholics who are just drunks and they believe in works it doesn't make any sense there's a definite inversion of logic there if they believe in works they should be living the their best life now right as we talked about a week ago but here's a thing folks what you're going to learn in Romans as we go forward and what you're going to learn as you grow as a Christian if you don't already know it is that the law is freedom the law is freedom sin is slavery and you're going to learn that and the more you you learn the Bible and the more you get you get plugged into the Christian life and the more you start walking in the spirit instead of the flesh you're going to understand that sin all these things the world tells you is freedom is slavery that's what you're going to learn so the law drives us to the gospel and we get saved and it establishes us in our life okay and Paul's going to get very deep into all those things in the next in the coming chapters so all that you know that the drinking the music the TV the the the dressing provocatively all that stuff is slavery you'll see it clears day and the more you start living the right life you're going to see that as well and it's a wonderful thing because I mean people look at me now is that I used to say that about my friend Lance I used to say it all time great guy no fun I used to say that I'm embarrassed to say but I used to say that about the guy but the thing is people look at me and they people worldly people will look at me and think the same thing like we're just no fun but I've never had more fun in my life than I'm having right now and that is the truth because the law and walking in the law walking in the spirit instead of the flesh it is just is mind-blowingly free folks all right let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer dear heavenly father we thank you for these chapters in the Bible we thank you for the Apostle Paul that you used him to write such such great great essays and explanations on on the gospel Lord we ask you that just give us give us this clarity that Paul has when we go out and we preach the gospel just help us be as clear as possible using your word Lord knowing that it's your word that has power using your word for whatever anyone comes at us with or has questions about that we may be able to give them a clear understanding and a clear explanation from your word Lord and and hopefully that their heart is right and that they will end up you know accepting Christ or we thank you we thank you for this church thank you for all these people that would come out on a Thursday night to hear hear your word preached bless the rest of our evening and the fellowship to come in Jesus name