Romans 3:10-20
The law shows us how sinful we
are.
This week the world is talking
about war. The Assad regime in Syria
used gas on its citizens. Of course,
these citizens are of a different ethnic group so the regime does not consider
them “their” people. The regime is
fighting to put down a rebellion, and gas was the quickest way to get the
rebels to give up. However, the Assad
regime denies using poison gas, and Russia and Iran support Assad. Israel bombed the base from which the gas
attack was launched. Britain and France
joined with the United States and launched attacks in response to the
gassings. The world is focused on this
one conflict involving multiple countries.
However, let’s consider a few other conflicts. The United States has treaty and military
commitments in conflicts involving North Korea, China, Afghanistan and
ISIS. In 2017, just less than 150,000
people died as a direct result of war.[1]
These conflicts involve the
leaders and rulers in our world, the ones we look to for answers, stability and
responsibility. We could talk about
human trafficking, sex trade, murders, rapes and organized crime if we wanted
to delve into the problem of evil even more. We all agree there is evil in the world, even
though our opinions may differ as to what is evil and what is not evil. Although we see it all around us, evil is a
difficult subject for us to address.
What do we mean when we say “evil”? The dictionary tells us that evil means:
“profoundly immoral and malevolent.”[2]
The Bible teaches us that the Devil is the prince and power of the air
(Ephesians 2:2, KJV), and that he is now at work in the sons of disobedience. Certainly, we can blame the Devil for the evil
in the world today; however, people are still responsible for their actions. People are the “profoundly immoral and
malevolent” actors in the atrocities we see. The Bible tells us:
“For
from the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, all sexual immorality,
theft, lying, and slander.” (Matthew 15:19 NLT)
According to this, evil originates
in the heart. However, most of us are
not as bad as we could be. Therefore, we
do not consider ourselves“profoundly immoral and malevolent,” and most of us do
not fit that definition.
The Bible tells us, “Anyone who
hates another brother or sister is really a murderer at heart.” (1 John 3:15 NLT) Can we agree
that murder is evil? This is why the New
Testament teaches us that:
“Those
who belong to Christ Jesus have nailed the passions and desires of their sinful
nature to his cross and crucified them there.” (Galatians
5:24 NLT)
It is not that we do not
experience sinful passions and desires, but we have submitted those passions
and desires to Christ. We have and are
presenting our bodies as living sacrifices to God. (Romans 12:1-2).
Nevertheless, God’s analysis of
the condition of man’s heart was established in Genesis, where it says:
“The
Lord observed the extent of human wickedness on the earth, and he saw that
everything they thought or imagined was consistently and totally evil.” (Genesis
6:5 NLT)
The Bible calls this evil that
resides in people’s hearts “sin.” In
general, people do not like to talk about sin. Going back to our definition of evil, most
people do not want to think of themselves as being “profoundly immoral and
malevolent.” We need to understand, the
Bible does not teach that everyone is as bad as he or she could be. However, the Bible does teach that everyone is
a sinner. What makes one a sinner? Why does the Bible say, “all have sinned?”
Romans 3:10-18 shows us three
features of our person that reveal the evil in our heart and then names that
evil. The three features are: 1) the
heart, 2) the mouth and 3) the feet.
The first feature is the
heart. Romans 3:10-11 says, “None is
righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God.” The problem pointed out here is that no one
seeks for God.
Why is this evil?
Why is this sin?
Why say no one is righteous and
point out not seeking God as the problem?
When asked what the most important
commandment was, Jesus said:
“‘You
must love the LORD your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.’ This is
the first and greatest commandment.” (Matthew 22:37-38 NLT)
This is followed by the second commandment
to “love your neighbor as yourself.”
According to Jesus, “The entire law and all the demands of the prophets
are based on these two commandments.” (Matthew 22:40 NLT). The problem
of sin begins in the heart. We do not
understand how not seeking God can be the root of our problems or the root of
the evil in the world. Romans 3:11 says,
“...no one understands.” This is what
causes us to turn aside and become worthless as it speaks of in Romans
3:12. It all starts in our hearts and as
Romans 6 teaches, we are all slaves, either to righteousness or to sin. As Bob Dylan said in his song “Gotta Serve
Somebody:”
...Well, it may be the devil or it may be the
Lord
But you're gonna have to serve somebody[3]
The heart as a feature of the
person is where sin starts, but the heart reveals its contents through the
mouth. The second feature Romans 3:10-18
speaks about is the mouth. Romans
3:13-14 says:
"Their
throat is an open grave; they use their tongues to deceive.” "The venom of asps is under their lips.” "Their mouth is full of curses and
bitterness.” (Romans 3:13-14 ESV)
Jesus taught us, “What you say
flows from what is in your heart.” (Luke 6:45 NLT) In grade school, my daughter
had a teacher who liked to say, “What’s down in the well comes up in the
bucket.” What a clever way to say, “What
you say flows from what is in your heart!”
What causes the “slip” of the tongue anyway? We all say things in a poor manner from time
to time. The meaning of what we want to
communicate gets lost behind our choice of words. This is not what I am talking about as a slip
of the tongue. The slip of the tongue
happens when the wrong word slips out because that is what is really in our
heart. The Bible warns us about our
tongues and how much of a problem they are when it says:
“And
the tongue is a fire, a world of unrighteousness. The tongue is set among our members, staining
the whole body, setting on fire the entire course of life, and set on fire by
hell. For every kind of beast and bird,
of reptile and sea creature, can be tamed and has been tamed by mankind, but no
human being can tame the tongue. It is a
restless evil, full of deadly poison. With
it we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse people who are made in
the likeness of God.” (James 3:6-9 ESV)
When the Bible says, “...no human being
can tame the tongue,” it is not using hyperbole. Romans 3:13-14 speaks of mouths full of
curses and bitterness, and this is the result of a problem in the heart. No one can tame the tongue because the problem
starts in the heart. This is also true
of a person’s feet. The feet are the
third feature of a person that Romans 3:10-18 speaks about.
Romans 3:15-17 says:
"Their
feet are swift to shed blood; in their paths are ruin and misery, and the way
of peace they have not known.” (Romans 3:15-17 ESV)
Another way of saying, “Their feet
are shift to shed blood,” is to say, "They are eager to commit
murder." In Ephesians 4:19, the
Bible describes the human condition as:
“They
have no sense of shame. They live for
lustful pleasure and eagerly practice every kind of impurity.” (Ephesians 4:19 NLT)
In this passage, we see that they
are eager to practice every kind of impurity.
The feet represent the decision of the heart. We refer to this when we say people vote with
their feet.
Solomon was a very wise man, quite
possibly the wisest man that ever lived (Jesus excepted, of course). After having examined life and seeking wisdom,
he offers this as part of his conclusion:
Our feet (our actions) reflect our
hearts. This is also, why the Bible
teaches we will be judged according to what we have done. We do not send people to jail for the evil
thoughts they have had, but for the evil deeds, they have done. However, the evil deeds are always preceded
by evil thoughts. If every second and
every action of your life were played on a movie screen before the whole world,
would you be found faultless? According
to the Bible, no one would.
These three features of our
person, our heart, mouth and feet, convict us of sin. Romans 3:18 names the root of this evil when
it says; “There is no fear of God before their eyes.” The fear of the Lord is the beginning of
wisdom. (Proverbs 9:10) Sin in the heart is at the root of all the
problems we see in the world today. However,
at the root of sin in the heart is this accusation of Romans 3:18, “There is no
fear of God before their eyes.” This is
why we do not seek God, have evil mouths and are swift to shed blood.
This brings us to the conclusion
that is expressed in Romans 3:19-20. The
law does not fix our heart problem. It
only serves to make apparent or obvious the problem in our hearts. According to Romans 3:20, “...through the law
comes knowledge of sin.”
A sinner is not a person who is as
bad as he or she could potentially be. Nor
is a sinner a person who we might label as evil. What makes one a sinner is what is in that
person’s heart. It starts with not
having an appropriate fear of God.
The original temptation started
with “...you will be like God...” (Genesis
3:5) This same drive or desire to be
like God sets us against God and makes us His enemies. The good news is that while we were still
enemies Christ died for us. (Romans
5:10). In order to be saved from the
evil that resides in our hearts, all we have to do is to believe on the Lord
Jesus Christ. Romans 10:9-10 puts it
this way:
...because,
if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart
that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is
justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved. (Romans 10:9-10 ESV)
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