826. All Under Sin

Welcome to The Daily Platform, sponsored by Bob Jones University in Greenville, South Carolina. Today's speaker is the president of Bob Jones University, Dr. Steve Pettit.

For over 29 years, Steve was an evangelist, traveling across the country preaching and teaching in evangelistic services and camp ministries. Today, Steve will challenge us from Romans 3, where Paul shows us our need of salvation. The title of the message is All Under Sin. I'm going to ask you to please take your Bibles and turn with me this morning to the third chapter of the book of Romans. Romans chapter 3 this morning. And we're going to read, beginning in verse 9 down to verse 12. And our text verse this morning is found in verse 9. The Bible says, What then are we better than they know and know wise? For we have before proved, both Jews and Gentiles, that they are all under sin. As it is written, there is none righteous, no, not one. There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God. They are all gone out of the way. They are together become unprofitable.

There is none that doeth good, no, not one. These words that we just read were written by inspiration by the Apostle Paul. Paul had a passionate desire to go to the city of Rome, the city in that day which was the largest in the world. And he wanted to go and preach the message of salvation to both Jews and Gentiles. And Paul was eager about it. He was, as we would say, he was fired up.

He was stirred up. But Paul knew all too well that there is no point in preaching the way of salvation unless a person recognizes their need of salvation. Or you could say it this way, the old preacher said, You can't get people saved until you get people lost. So what does Paul do? He devotes three entire chapters to showing people their need to be saved.

Or you could simply say to help them understand that they are lost. And in Romans chapter 3 and verse 9, the verse that we're looking at this morning, Paul makes both a conclusive and an irrefutable statement. Notice what he says, What then are we better than they know and know wise? For we have before proved both Jews and Gentiles, they are all under sin. This morning I'd like us to take a few moments to look at these three words where Paul is conclusively stating the true condition of all of us, that we are all under sin. And the first thing I want us to see this morning is that Paul makes it very clear that sin is a universal problem. Notice what he says, he says all are under sin.

Without exception, all men, Jews and Gentiles. And by the way, that statement is basically referring to the whole world because in the day of the Apostle Paul there were either Jews or there's the rest of the world, the Gentiles. And Paul is saying that without exception, in all places, at all times, under all circumstances, that men do consistently and persistently sin, all are under sin. This is clearly validated by the scripture. You read Romans chapter 3 verses 10 through 12 where Paul strings together Old Testament verses to validate man's sinfulness. Look at what he says in verse 10, as it is written, there's none righteous, no, not one. There's none that understandeth, there's none that seeketh after God. They are all gone out of the way, they are together becoming profitable.

There's none that doeth good, no, not one. Think about it, six times Paul uses the phrase there is none or not one. Two times he uses the phrase they are all.

And what is he doing? He's simply showing the comprehensive nature of the sinfulness of man. It is the whole testimony of the Bible, for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. Let me make it very simple, this room is filled with hundreds and hundreds of sinners. So look around you, what do you see? You see sinful people.

But not only is the universality of sin validated by the scripture, but it is verified by experience. Fly to the remotest parts of the earth. Visit every tribe and every people groups. Study carefully every human culture.

And you will discover without fail and without exception that every single person is living under the controlling power of sin. How many of you worked an internship this summer in another American city? How many of you went to a foreign country this year and did missions work? It doesn't matter the culture. Language can be different, food can be different, dress can be different, world view can be different. But what's not different is that in every culture people lie, people cheat, people steal, people commit adultery and people kill one another.

Why? Because all are under sin. The famed theologian Charles Hodge stated, we have no account of any family, tribe or nation that is free from the contamination of sin. The universality of sin among men is therefore one of the most undeniable doctrines of scripture and one of the most certain facts of scripture. We all know this is true because we know it by our own experience.

Because when we do wrong, we all feel bad. A number of years ago I was on a flight, sat next to a gentleman, began to have a conversation with him. His name was Dan. I said, Dan, what do you do for a living? He said, I install polygraph machines and teach people how to run them. Do you know what a polygraph machine is? It's a lie detector.

He said, I've installed them in Russia, in Israel, in South America. So I asked him a question. I said, Dan, by the way, he gave me his card. He was called Dan the polygraph man. I said, Dan, can you lie and the polygraph machine not pick it up? And he said, it is impossible. I said, why? He said, it's just the way we're made up as human beings.

Our body, our emotions, our words, our thoughts are all together so that when we lie, our body responds. And I thought, why is that true? Because we are all made in the moral image of God. And God only tells truth and men in sin lie. You see, folks, it is a universal truth of what Paul said.

We have all sinned. But then notice secondly that sin is not only a universal problem, but sin is a control problem. Notice he says all are under sin.

The word under means to be under the control of. Just like the Israelites who are under the bondage of the Egyptians. So men are enslaved or they are controlled by sin. In Romans 6-20, Paul states that before we are saved, we are the servants. We are the slaves to sin. We can't stop sinning.

And let me say that this control of sin is something that is permanent. For example, let's take the rolling of a dice. Let's say you take two dice and you roll them and it lands on lucky seven. Well, you don't necessarily think that something is wrong with the dice, but if you throw that same pair of dice one million times and it lands on the number seven one million times, what do you think?

You think the dice is what we call loaded or it's fixed. Now if we know that all men in all places at all times under all circumstances are consistently sinners 100% of the time regardless of their education, their economic position, or their environment, then the logical conclusion is that the cause for sinning is more than just simply people making bad choices. We must assume that there is, as Jonathan Edwards said, that there is a prevailing propensity in all of us to sin.

That is, we have the inbred tendency, the natural inclination, or a bent toward sinning, or we could just simply say our dice is loaded. And Jesus said this. Jesus made it very clear that if we sin that it's actually rooted not just in our choice, but it's in our nature. Listen to what Jesus said in Matthew 12 33. Either make the tree good in his fruit good or else make the tree corrupt in his fruit corrupt for the tree is known by his fruit.

It is the root that produces the fruit. What comes out of the life comes from within the life. The choices of our wills are determined by the dispositions of our hearts. And Jesus was emphatic when he declared that sin proceeds out of an evil heart. There is nothing, Jesus said, from without a man that entering into him can defile him, but the things which come out of him, those are they that defile the man, Mark 7 15. Mark 7 21, for from within, out of the heart of men, proceeds evil thoughts. You see, you do what you do because you are what you are. We are not sinners because we sin. We actually sin because we are sinners. The heart of sin lies in the heart of man. Our choices are based on our nature and within our nature, our nature is fixed.

Our dice is loaded. And the problem is that we can't fix it. You can't fix your heart.

Let me put it this way, you can't stop sinning. We can't change our natures. Jeremiah said it this way, can the Ethiopian change his skin? Or the leopard, his spots?

Can a leopard go to Walmart and buy spot remover and change his spots? Then may you also do good that are accustomed to do evil? The Bible is saying, Paul is teaching, that the control of sin is a permanent condition.

We cannot change what we are. But let me also say that the control of sin is not only permanent in its condition, but it is total in its scope. Let me put it this way, no part of human nature, that there is no part of our human nature that has not been totally and thoroughly corrupted by our sin.

What did Paul say in Romans 3 10? There's none righteous, no, not one. There's no secret part of you that is righteous. There's no part of you, as one theologian said, is an island of righteousness. You don't have a little part of you that is right. Sin has penetrated, and it has permeated every part of your being, your mind, your emotions, and your will, so that you can say that we are total sinners.

Our hard drive has been corrupted. And notice what Paul says. He says in verse 11, sin has affected our minds. He says there's none that understands. Within the sphere of the human mind, nobody can comprehend God. You can't find God on your own. The Bible says the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God. They are foolishness unto him. Human reasoning cannot find its way to God.

Only God can show you the way to himself. That's called divine revelation. Sin has affected our minds.

Sin has affected our desires. Look at verse 11, there's none that seeks after God. That means nobody looks for God, nobody attempts to find God, and the reason is because nobody's interested in God. I met a fellow on a plane a number of years ago, and I asked him, where do you go to church, or have you ever gone to church? He said, I've never been to church in my life. And I asked him the question, I said, do you ever think about God?

And he said, never. Thomas Aquinas said, we desire, and we are interested in the blessings and the benefits that only God can give without desiring and being interested in God. We seek after happiness, peace, relief from guilt, and personal fulfillment. We want the gifts, but we don't want the giver.

We want the benefits without the benefactor. Sin has corrupted our desires. And then the Bible says sin has actually corrupted our wills. The Bible says in verse 12, they are all gone out of the way. That means that our will is actually in conflict with God.

We're like Adam. When God showed up, we ran in the opposite direction. When God comes around, we go somewhere else. We should be running to God, but human nature runs from God. And furthermore, we have no desire to submit to God. The Bible says the carnal mind is enmity against God. It is not subject to the law of God.

Neither indeed can be. Our natural wills are in rebellion against God. And what is the result of all of this? Romans 3, 12 says they are together, become unprofitable.

What does that mean? It means that nobody can earn salvation on your own attempts. Nobody.

There's nobody good enough. Charles Hodge said we are destitute of any righteousness, and we are disabled and opposed to all that is good. We are totally, we are thoroughly, and we are radically corrupted. You say, now wait a minute. Are you saying that nobody can do anything good? No, that's not what I'm saying. The fact is the Bible recognizes that men can be honest in their dealings, they can be kind in their feelings, and they can become benevolent in their conduct, unsaved people.

Why? Because all people have a conscience. And because of this, our conduct can be regulated by a sense of right and wrong. So there's no conflict between the good that men can do and the Bible's teaching on the depravity of man. By depravity, what we are saying is that man is, he's talking about primarily about our relationship with God. When God evaluates our actions, he considers not only what we do, our actions, but why we do what we do, our motives. And the bottom line is that all men are absent of any desire to do what we do out of a love for God and out of a desire to glorify our God. In other words, our sinfulness is seen in our self-centeredness.

Instead of apprehending and appreciating God for who he is, his perfections, we are literally, as some have said, God failures. God is not the center of our life. That's what makes us so sinful.

Because God is the center of everything. And the depravity of man is living life without God. Sin is a control problem. We're all controlled by our sin unless somehow God delivers us.

And that leads me to the last point. And that is sin is a racial problem. All are under sin. You see, the Bible teaches that the entire human race descends from one man. His name is Adam. Paul says in Acts 17, 26, that God hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth.

The color of your skin may be different, but the color of your blood is the same. We are all made of one blood that links us back in creation to the first man, the head of the human race, whose name is Adam. It's quite obvious that Adam was a real man. Paul clearly believed that. And when God created Adam, he put him in a perfect garden. But he sinned and he disobeyed God. And the results of his sin not only affected Adam, but it affected the entire human race. How do you explain sin, preacher? Romans 5, 12, wherefore is by one man sin entered into the world and death by sin.

So death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned. When Adam chose to sin, the effects of what he did were passed on to the human race. We call that original sin. Adam's corruption was transferred to his descendants, the human race, as a punishment for his sin.

This is what we call the fall. And since all of mankind is racially connected to Adam, then we are all under sin. It's the human race problem. We are unable to live without sinning. We cannot not sin. And as a result of Adam's sin, we are all going to die.

What is death? It is God's judgment for sin. We are all under judgment because we are all under sin. And apart from divine intervention, without God stepping in, we are all lost. Unless he comes to save. If we are sinners racially, then we need a racial savior. We need someone who can come and save the human race. And who is that savior?

It's one who became a human. Who is called the second Adam, because the first Adam brought sin, but the second Adam came to deliver us from sin. We need a deliverer who will redeem us from the bondage and the control of sin. You can't save yourself. You can't change yourself.

You can't stop your sin. You need a redeemer. We need a healer who can reverse the curse.

Who can undo what Adam did. We need a savior. One who loves us and cares for us. So that he can make us new people and change our hearts and start a brand new race.

And who is that one? His name is Jesus. Only Jesus can save all who are under sin.

Would you bow your head with me as we pray this morning? There's not a person in this room who is not like what Paul said, all are under sin. All of you need to be saved if you've not been saved. If you die under sin, then you die under God's judgment. You need a savior.

You need a deliverer. So let me ask a few questions before we pray. Have you been delivered and redeemed and saved and healed from the power of sin in your life? Do you have a new heart? Are you a new person? Have you been born into a new race?

The race of believers? I'd like to ask two questions this morning. Number one, how many of you would say, Dr. Pettit, by God's grace and by his grace alone, I know in my heart that if I were to die today, now, this very hour, I know I would be in the presence of God because I know that God has saved me from my sins.

He has changed my heart and made me a new person. If you could testify to that this morning with joy in your heart that you have been saved, would you raise your hand and hold it up? You may put your hands down.

God bless you. In just a moment, I'm going to pray. But I'd like to ask those of you that did not raise your hand, would you allow me to pray for you today? Who would say, Dr. Pettit, please pray for me? I know I'm a sinner.

I got it. But I don't know that I've been saved and if I died, I don't know that I would go to heaven. And I know I do wrong.

I've tried to stop and I fail. And you would say, please, please pray for me. If I were to die today, I don't know that I would go to heaven, but I want to know that. Pray for me as I lift my voice to God this morning.

Would you lift your hand right where you're seated? Pray for me today. Thank you. God bless you. Pray for me this morning.

Lift your hand where you're seated, if you will. Pray for me today. Father, we thank you this morning. For the unchanging truth of your word that can change our hearts. Father, please bless these next few days. We pray for every student that is without Christ that they will come to Christ. We pray that as a student body, our hearts will be drawn to the Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of our lives, that we would love him and serve him. Thank you for this time together. Be honored today in Jesus' name.

Amen. I'm Steve Pettit, president of Bob Jones University, and I invite you to join us at our beautiful campus in Greenville, South Carolina, to see how you can be prepared academically and spiritually to serve the Lord through one of our more than 100 undergraduate and graduate programs. For more information about Bob Jones University, visit www.bju.edu or call 800-252-6363. Thank you for joining us today. You know, these daily programs are made possible by the many friends of Bob Jones University and this radio ministry. If you appreciate these programs and benefit from the faithful preaching and teaching of God's word, would you consider sending us a special financial gift today? You can easily do that through the website, thedailyplatform.com, and then click on the Give button on the home page. We hope you'll join us next week at this same time when we'll study God's word together on The Daily Platform.