The Judge’s Verdict Of Mankind: Romans Series #25

We have before us a legal picture. We need to keep in mind in this chapter, it is Paul’s purpose to prove that every person in the world is a sinner and they are in desperate need of salvation.

In Romans 1:19 Paul showed the total pagan is guilty and needs a Saviour. Then he moved on to the good, moral person and he proved the good, moral person is guilty and needs a Saviour. Next, he moved to the religious person—the church member—and he showed that the religious person is a sinner guilty and in need of a Saviour.

With this in mind, Paul now summarizes the case. It is now time for the verdict to be rendered. The verdict he is going to reach is given to us in Romans 3:19. The verdict is that all of the human race—the whole world—is guilty before God. We have all sinned and come short of the glory of God.

Guilt is one of the most painful of human emotions. I’m talking about real, genuine guilt. People do all kinds of things to deal with guilt. Sometimes they are driven to alcohol or to drugs. Some even are driven into depression and suicide. People go to psychiatrists trying to resolve their guilt. Yet guilt is merely a symptom. Guilt is a symptom of something that is wrong deep within the human heart. Guilt is a symptom of sin, and you will never deal with the guilt until you first of all deal with the symptom.

The court is now in session and we are going to read the verdict of the Bible that all people everywhere are guilty. I don’t guess there is anything more dramatic and causes more suspense than to be waiting for the verdict of a jury. It is time now for the verdict to be rendered. It is time now for the verdict from God versus the people to be rendered. Order in the court. The Court of the Universe is now getting ready to render the verdict.

I. We Must Learn from the People (Romans 3:9–12)

I want you to see who those are who are standing before the judgment bar, awaiting the announcement of the verdict. In 3:9, we learn all people are under sin. In 3:12, we note the word “sin” again and “they are all gone out of the way” (KJV); “they have all turned aside, together they have become corrupt (NASB). In 3:19, all the world may become guilty before God.

All of us are represented here. Not a one of us is excluded. I’m standing before the bench. You are standing before the judgment bar. All of the human race—the whole human race has been called to gather before God for the rendering of the verdict.

In verse 9 Paul says, “Are we better than they?” We—he is referring to the Jews. They—is referring to the Gentiles. He says, “No, in no wise; for we have before proved . . . that they are all under sin.” In other words, we have already brought charges previously that both Jews and Gentiles are all under sin. He is saying that there is no exception in being a Jew or Gentile—the two main divisions of the human race. 

There are many differences in the races. There are differences of color. There are differences of culture. But there is one thing that is consistent and in common with all of the races of the earth. It is—all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. All are guilty. All desperately need a Saviour.

Notice it says we have before proved that all are under sin. Notice that little phrase, “all are under sin.” That doesn’t just mean we have all committed sin. That means we are all under the domination of sin. We are all under the power of sin.

The Bible says whosoever commits sin is the servant of sin. So we are not just sinners; we are slaves to sin. We are all locked up in the prison house of human sin. We all desperately need some way to extricate ourselves from the prison of sin. Sin is the poison of satanic origin that has infested the bloodstream of the whole human race. So the participants are all of us. We are all standing before the judgment.

Notice what he says about us all. He says that all of us are unrighteous. Verse 10: “There is none righteous, no, not one.” The Bible says that we all want to think that we are righteous. The Bible says that we all want to declare our own righteousness. We like to feel like we’re pretty good guys. “I’m a good husband.” “I’m a good wife.” “I’m a good son.” “I’m a good daughter.” “I’m good on the job.” “I try to do what’s right.” Yet, the Bible says there is none righteous, no, not one.

The reason we want to declare ourselves righteous is because we are making a false comparison. We think we are doing pretty good because we compare ourselves with someone else. Do you remember the Pharisee Jesus talked about? He saw the poor old publican come into the temple and the publican could not even lift his face toward God. The Pharisee prayed, “Lord, I thank You I am not as other men are. I am not as this poor publican.”

We compare ourselves to someone else. We look at old Joe down the street and say, “I’m not as bad as he is. I’m a pretty good fellow.” It is wrong to compare yourselves with other people. That’s the wrong comparison.

Sometimes we compare ourselves by our own standards. I think one of the most revealing statements made in all of the Bible is in the book of Judges. It said in those days every man did that which was right in his own eyes. In other words, he thought he was right, but the standard was his own opinion.

That’s a wrong comparison. The only true comparison whereby to see where we really stand before God is to compare ourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ. That’s what Romans 3:23 means when it says, “all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God.” Jesus is the glory of God. Jesus Christ is the perfect standard. When you compare yourself to Jesus, then you don’t come up too good.

Additionally, Paul says we are not only all unrighteous, but we are all unreasonable. Verse 11—there is none that understands. He is talking here about the way we think. He is talking about our reasoning processes. There are none that understands. There are none who reasons correctly.

I never cease to be amazed at the brilliance of the human mind. Man, on the one hand, can be so brilliant in areas like computers, and yet he can be strangely dense when it comes to spiritual things. The Bible says the natural man receives not the things of God. They are foolishness to him because they are spiritually discerned. The human mind, unaided, is totally unable to understand and to comprehend the things of God.

Someone says it doesn’t matter what you believe just as long as you are sincere. So another guy and I are watching you one day and there’s a glass of liquid on the table. You are reaching for it and you are getting ready to pick up that glass of liquid. I see there is poison in the glass. I tell my friend, “We better stop him. He’s fixing to drink that poison.” My friend says, “That’s alright. He thinks it’s orange juice.”

It doesn’t matter what he believes just as long as he’s sincere in what he believes. You can be as sincere as you want to be and think it’s orange juice, but if it’s poison, it’s going to poison you. It does make a difference what you believe.

Not only are we unrighteous and unreasonable, but we are all unresponsive. We read, “none that seeks after God” (3:11). On the surface that doesn’t sound correct. We say people have a hunger after God. We say that people today are seeking spiritual things, but the truth of the matter is there is no one really seeking after God. People aren’t beating the doors down on churches seeking the things of God.

People are running from God. Do you know why lost people don’t find God? They don’t find God for the same reason a bank robber doesn’t find a policeman. They are not looking for God.

God has to take the initiative. It is not the sinner that seeks after God. It is God who seeks after the sinner. When Adam sinned in the Garden of Eden he didn’t go running after God. The Bible says the Lord God came walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and when Adam heard God he ran and hid himself. It was God who said, “Adam, where art thou?” It is God who seeks the sinner.

Jesus said it’s like a shepherd in the mountainside seeking the lost sheep. Then Jesus said, “The Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost” (Luke 19:10). Sinners are not seeking after God. It’s our job to seek after sinners.

You may say, “I have a hunger in my heart to know God. I am reading this book and I’d like to know the Lord.” That simply means to me that if you have a desire in your heart to know the Lord, God has already been seeking you; God has already been working on your heart. If there is any inkling of desire to be saved and to know Jesus as your Saviour, then I plead with you to respond to God given the desire in your heart.

In Jeremiah 29:13 the Bible says in the day that “if you seek me with all of your heart, you will surely find Me.” You can find Jesus Christ right now. In our lost condition we are all unresponsive.

We are all also unrepentant. Romans 3:12: “They are all gone out of the way.” There’s a word where we get our English word, “incline.” It means to slide away from God. We are all on a mudslide away from God. We are all in willful departure from God.

We are all become unprofitable. The word there was used to describe milk that had gone sour. Have you ever tasted any milk that’s gone sour? You know how utterly worthless and useless sour milk is. This is not a very complimentary picture of us, and this is what God says. We are all become unprofitable. Sin has soured us. Sin has rendered us worthless. Notice Paul goes says, “There is none that doeth good, no, not one.”

As participants we are standing before a holy God. God versus the people. All of us stand before God and none of us are good, no, not one.

II. We Must Look at the Problems (Romans 3:13–18)

In any trial there is always a bill of particulars. The indictment has to be made on the basis of the bill of particulars. The charges have to be laid out. The proof has to be laid before the court. In verses 13–18 you have God’s bill of particulars that proves beyond question that we are all sinners and we desperately need a Saviour.

I do not know how many airport detectors I have been through in airports over the last 50 years. If there is anything in my pocket this alarm will go off. These verses illustrate how God views and understands our lives. This is what God sees from heaven when He looks down at us from head to toe.

This bill of particulars absolutely indicts us and proves we need a Savior. First, we are indicted by what we declare. “Their throat is an open sepulcher—an open grave” (Romans 3:13). He is saying that every time they open their mouth, there is a stench that comes out like the stench from an opened, exposed grave.

Have you ever smelled dead, decaying human flesh? There is no odor more pungent, there is no odor more offensive in all the earth than the odor of dead human flesh. He is saying that the throat of man is so filled with sin that every time people open their mouth there is the stench of death about them.

Listen to people; listen to what they have to say. We prove our guilt by what we declare. Their throat is like an open sepulcher. “With their tongue they have used deceit.” The word “deceit” was a word that was used to bait a hook and catch a fish. Paul’s talking about a description of the human race and the way we treat one another. The way people try to trick folks with their words and trap, deceive, and scam people.

Then the apostle Paul says, “The poison of asps is under their lips.” The word “asp” is a reference to the Egyptian cobra. In those days the Egyptian cobra was the most poisonous snake known to man. So poisonous was the bite of that little Egyptian cobra that if a person was bitten by it, if the part that had been bitten wasn’t cut off, it would be fatal; you couldn’t live.

Poisonous snakes have their fangs in their upper lip, and those fangs are turned upward. When they strike, those fangs drop, and when the fangs hit the victim, they push those poison sacs, and it deposits the venom into the victim. Paul is saying that all of us in our sinful condition, in our natural condition have poison word sacs. We deposit our poison into people’s lives. You can kill a reputation with a word. You can kill somebody’s good name with just a word.

We declare, “Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness” (verse 14). Today, we can hardly turn on a TV program without hearing profanity. The music—it seems today that the more profane, the more vulgar the music is, the more people seem to like it. The more records they seem to buy.

The way people talk is an indication of what’s going on in their hearts. The mouths of the America people are full of cursing and bitterness.

You know what profanity is. It is the effort of an evil mind to express itself forcibly. If you don’t have enough vocabulary to say what you want to say without using profanity, then you need to go back to school for a little while. You aren’t cool because you use filthy, vulgar language. You are just proving what God says in the Bible is true about your own condition before God.

Next, we are indicted by what we do. Verse 15, “Their feet are swift to shed blood.” He’s talking about murder. The first sin committed outside the Garden of Eden was murder.

I think about Nazi Germany. One of the worst atrocities that ever took place in the history of humankind was in Nazi Germany. They killed 6 million Jews. Not only that, but they went further than that. They not only killed them, but they took gold teeth and melted them down to be put in the state bank. They took human hair and baled it for commercial purposes. They stripped their skins and turned it into lampshades. Murder became a state industry with by-products. That’s so awful.

The apostle Paul writes, “Their feet run swift to shed blood.” In verse 16, “Destruction and misery are in their way.” He is saying that the trail of a sinner is a trail that leads to havoc, ruin, heartache, misery, anguish, and sorrow in its path, everywhere it goes.

In the Psalm 23:6 we read, “goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life.” We leave a trail. But the lost person, the person who doesn’t know Christ, destruction and misery are in their way.

We also read in verse 17 of Romans: “the way of peace have they not known.” People talk about peace. They put signs on their cars that say, “Make peace, not war.” But this world, when the Prince of Peace came, united they put the Prince of Peace on a cross. There will never be any peace in America, there will never be any peace in this world, and there will never be peace in the human heart until the world or America or that human heart comes to know Jesus Christ, the Prince of Peace Himself. Jesus said, “My peace I give unto you.” There is no peace until you’ve met the Prince of Peace.

Not only are we indicted by what we declare and what we do, but we are also indicted by what we despise. Verse 18, “There is no fear of God before their eyes.” There is no fear of God today. You tell people today there’s a hell and they just laugh at you. They think it’s funny. They don’t want any mention of God. No reference to God. In the United Nations you can’t mention the name of God and yet they have a statue of Zeus in the UN.

When someone gets on television and mentions the name of Jesus, listen to the sneers and the hate that comes out in people. Let somebody mention the name of Jesus in the halls of government in America and see the hostility against the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. No fear of God before their eyes.

III. We Must Listen to the Pronouncements (Romans 3:19–20)

Even though there is overwhelming evidence, to the very last we are all trying to protest our innocence. To the very last we are all trying to claim our goodness. We try to proclaim our righteousness. We have come to the time for the verdict. The verdict is rendered in Romans 3:19, “that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God.” We are guilty before God. The Bible says no one is excluded.

What are the pronouncements? Because we are guilty, we are utterly speechless. We read, “every mouth may be stopped.” “Whatever things the law says, it says to those who are under the law so that every mouth may be stopped and all the world guilty.” What does Paul mean?

There was a rancher who had 100 acres in the desert. It was 100 barren, worthless acres. But he wanted to try to make it as productive as he could, so he thought he would give it a try. He found the 12 best-looking acres on the ranch he could find and he fenced them off. He did everything he could do to make those 12 acres produce and not be barren anymore. When it was all over, those 12 acres were absolutely barren. So he gave up on the whole 100 acres. If the 12 best acres couldn’t do it, none of the rest would either.

The Jews were God’s 12 acres. God took the 12 tribes of Israel—the Jews—and He fenced them off. He said, “I’ll do the best I can with them.” He gave those 12 acres the Law. He gave those 12 acres the promises of God. He sent to those 12 acres the prophets. Through those 12 acres He sent the Saviour, Jesus Christ, into the world. Yet the best that could be produced, those 12 special acres, God looked at it and said, “Even those who are under the law are sinners and need a Saviour.” If the Jews couldn’t make it—God’s chosen people—then there’s not a chance for any one of us. We are all guilty before God.

Suppose I should say to you, “What right do you have to go to heaven? “What would you say? There are only three answers you could give. One of the answers could be, “I have a right to go to heaven because of my record.”

You may think of it like going to traffic court. You are standing before the traffic judge and you have been caught speeding. You’ve run into three or four cars and wrecked them. You have resisted arrest and you stand before the traffic judge and say, “Judge, I want to be released and set free.” The judge says, “On what basis?” You answer, “Because of my record.”

He looks at you and says, “Man, are you crazy? Your record is the reason you are here in the first place.” So if you and I want to say we have a right to go into heaven because of our record—our record is the problem. We’ve all sinned and come short of the glory of God.

The second answer you could say is, “I don’t have any right. I have nothing to say.” If you want to be truthful about the matter, that’s where everyone of us are. We are utterly speechless. The first pronouncement is that we are utterly speechless. The second pronouncement is that we are utterly helpless.

In Romans 3:20, we read, “Therefore by the deeds of the law shall no flesh be justified in his sight.” He is saying that nobody is going to get saved by what they do. Nobody is going to get saved by their good deeds. For by the law is the knowledge of sin. All the law can do for us is show us that we are sinners and that we need a Saviour. We stand before the Judge of this universe and we are helpless. We don’t have a thing to say. We are speechless and we are helpless.

The verdict from God Himself is we are guilty. Yet something absolutely unexpected occurs. All of a sudden the Judge rises from the sacred bench, lays aside His judicial robes, and He goes out to a cross and He dies for the guilty.

This truth is the essence of the Gospel. There are only three possible answers. What right do you have to get into God’s heaven? Because of my record—that won’t do. Second, I do not have a right. Yet there is the third answer, I have redemption to get into God’s heaven because one day on an old cross Jesus died in my place and I asked Him to forgive me of all of my sins and have accepted Him as my Lord and my Savior.

We have the opportunity to walk away from the trial. We can walk away free and be singing, “By God’s Word at last my sin I learned. Then I trembled at the law I’d spurned. Till my guilty soul imploring turned to Calvary. Mercy there was great and grace was free. Pardon there was multiplied to me. There my burdened found liberty” (“At Calvary,” by William R. Newell).