Bridging Niagara

Human law and the exercising of it is an imperfect science.

Human law has loopholes. We can plead extenuating circumstances. And even if we lose our case, we can appeal to a higher court. And if we lose there, we can appeal to an even higher court. And even after all of our appeals are exhausted, we end up in prison.

We can write letters and write books and have movies made about our lives. And we can do anything but be quiet. Here at this scene, there's silence. People seem to spend a lot of time either acting like they're innocent or trying to convince others that they are innocent. When's the last time you made an attempt to cover up your sin? Well, a day is coming when our sin will cause us to be silent because there will be nothing to say. We will stand before a perfect judge. We will know that we are guilty and we'll be completely at his mercy.

Thankfully, mercy is what God offers us. God has constructed a bridge that spans the gap between our guilt and his deliverance. Here's Steven Davey with more on this in a lesson called Bridging Niagara. In 1848, Charles Ellett was an American engineer who was actually considered a little out of his mind. He believed that a bridge could be built across the raging rapids formed by the Niagara Falls. He planned to build a bridge just upstream from this falls where 37 million gallons of water cascade over the edge every 60 seconds. Over time, the water that rushed over the edge had cut a deep abyss into the rock and that basin below then sort of flowed onward in a series of whitewater rapids through an area called the Niagara Gorge. Charles Ellett believed that he could span the Niagara Gorge.

Everyone predicted, almost universally, predicted failure. The gorge was nearly a thousand feet across. It plummeted 200 plus feet straight down. There was no way to have bridge supports. The raging current wouldn't allow that for very long. And so he was convinced that he could build a suspension bridge, which at that point in time, in the mid 1800s, was a rather tenuous idea. In fact, only a year or two earlier, the great suspension bridge over the Ohio River had collapsed in a heaving, twisting ball of metal as it collapsed into the river. And so for this idea, it was considered rather tenuous. Besides, how does an engineer even begin to get the cable from the American side to the Canadian side to begin construction?

Well, Ellett solved that rather ingeniously. He offered to award the first person who could fly a kite across the gorge a $5 bill. On the day the competition began, the river gorge was, the side of it was packed with people and they said that you couldn't see the sun for all of the kites.

People were attempting to fly over the gorge and no one succeeded on that first day. On the second day, a little boy succeeded, a young Mr. Walsh. He won the prize. The string of his kite was fastened to a tree on the other side there and a light cord attached to it and then slowly pulled back over and then a heavier cord attached to that and returned and then a heavier rope until finally that steel cable made its way across Niagara Gorge. When that steel cable was securely anchored on both sides, Ellett decided to demonstrate his faith in that cable. He built an iron basket and attached it to the cable and with a series of pulleys literally pulled himself along, becoming the first man in history to cross the great chasm from above.

He wrote this in his journal. He said the wind was high and the weather was cold. It was a very interesting trip for me, perched up as I was, 240 feet above the rapids, viewing from the very center of the river, the great Niagara Falls. A few weeks later he finished the catwalk, which is just a series of wooden slats, and he announced another demonstration and he gathered a rather large crowd and then he leaped into a small horse-drawn carriage and rumbled fearlessly onto that little tiny bridge which swayed fearfully, which by the way at this point didn't even have the guard rails up and women fainted and everyone was dumbstruck at this engineer-turned-madman, but he was proving his point. The unthinkable was possible. And his bridge was soon completed. It was a marvel of engineering, a steel cabled suspension contraption.

Niagara had been bridged. If you wanted to, you could take your pencil or your pen in the first three chapters of Romans and write somewhere in the margin the summary of everything that Paul has been describing and it would be simply this, the great chasm . Paul describes the great chasm between God and man. In Romans chapter 1 we're first informed of how deep this abyss is and how impassable it is as he talks about mankind refusing to believe the testimony of creation as it points a universal finger to a creator.

God has refused. In chapter 2 we learned that man stubbornly resists the silent witness of the conscience as it whispers in the heart and mind of mankind, you're sinful, you're sinful, you're guilty, there's something wrong with you. In chapter 3 we learned that man in spite of creation, in spite of conscience, doesn't turn to God, he turns away from God, he doesn't understand spiritual things, he doesn't even want spiritual understanding, he doesn't respect God, he reviles God. And man will say some nice things about God and maybe even show up in a church service where we go through the rather pious platitudes around our culture and our country, in fact our world, and everything will be okay as long as God doesn't get pushy, as long as God doesn't demand ownership, everything will be fine. But man is incurably religious, isn't he? He has to worship something and so Paul has informed us in chapter 1 that man worships nature, in chapter 2 that man worships his own morals, in chapter 3 he worships himself. So for the entirety of these three chapters, nearly the entirety of them, they form the first section in the book of Romans. In fact you could end chapter 3 at verse 20 I think a little better than continuing on in verse 21.

This forms the first section which you could write. It's a simple description of the abyss. It's a description of the chasm. It is leading the world to an understanding that nobody will bridge this Niagara. You can't get across.

You need a bridge that a divine engineer can create. Paul, and we've spent a lot of time and we're not going to review it, I'm going to read a few scriptures from it, but basically holds up the mirror of divine revelation and he says to mankind, listen, here's what you look like. Here's who you are. And we've looked at the description and you know as well as I do, just in our own world you don't get mad at mirrors, do you? You don't argue with mirrors. You agreed with it this morning, fortunately, right?

And you took some drastic steps so that the world would not panic when they saw you, right? Funny, a few days ago my eight year old daughter had a sleepover, which is a contradiction in terms. Sleep has nothing to do with coming over. At any rate, she and her little friend were up until 3 a.m. and I had promised charity that I'd make pancakes in the morning. I thought, well, you know, they've gone to bed so late here that dad's specialty won't be missed.

And 6 a.m. they are up and as frisky as those little puppies I brought a few months ago, the only thing is I couldn't take them and put them in the backyard and tie them to a tree, which I had the thought of doing every so often. But anyhow, the doorbell rang and the father had to pick up this other girl earlier than I thought and I had gotten up and made pancakes. I went to the door and opened it and I noticed he gave me kind of a double look and after his daughter came and left I went back and looked in the mirror and I was wearing his old terry cloth bathrobe and slippers and my hair was sticking straight out and down in my eyes and, well, okay, nothing was down in my eyes. And I just looked in the mirror and laughed.

I thought, that poor guy, you know, nobody wonders what in the world. But, you know, the truth is we all every day typically at some point before we're ready to face the world take a look and we agree. We don't argue with mirrors.

Well, he has held the mirror up before us. Let's review quickly in chapter 1, verse 29, he describes mankind this way. He says mankind is filled with all unrighteousness, wickedness, greed, evil, full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malice.

They are gossips. Verse 30, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, arrogant, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents. Now everybody who ever reads this text doesn't have to find themselves in every phrase but the point is everybody finds themselves in this text somewhere. Without understanding, verse 31, untrustworthy, unloving, unmerciful and although they know the ordinance of God, in other words they know the difference between right and wrong intuitively, even though they know that and that those who practice such things are worthy of death, they not only do them but they give hearty approval to those who practice them. And in chapter 2, verse 4, he describes mankind, do you think lightly of the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that the kindness of God leads you to repentance? But because of your stubbornness and unrepentant heart, you are storing up wrath for yourself in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God who will render to every man according to his deeds.

And over in chapter 3, he describes man again in verse 10. He says there is none righteous, not even one. There is none who understands. There is none who seeks for God. All have turned aside. They have all become useless. There is none who does good.

There's not even one. He's not necessarily talking about individual acts. He's talking about the character and nature of man.

None of us can say I am good entirely. None of us. He says in verse 13 their throat is an open grave. With their tongues they keep deceiving. The poison of asps is under their lips, whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness.

Their feet are swift to shed blood. Destruction and misery are in their paths. And the path of peace, have they not known? There is no fear of God before their eyes.

They don't even respect him. This is the inspired revelation of humanity. This is the divine description of how deep and how wide that chasm is. This is the raging white water of sinful behavior. This is the Niagara Gorge that nobody will be able to leap across no matter how fast you run or how good a jumper you may be. No matter how you've figured out the angles and taken the best launching place, you will never make it across the chasm.

It must be bridged. That's his point. He now summarizes as he completes this particular thought that began in the middle of chapter 1. He now ends it with one sentence.

And I want to look this morning at that sentence. It's verses 19 and 20. Let's start with verse 19. Now we know that whatever the law says, it speaks to those who are under the law so that every mouth may be closed and all the world may become accountable to God.

Did you hear that? The very thing the world resists, the very thing that makes people angry, the very thing the world hates to consider, whatever happened, he says, will happen. One day, all the world will become accountable to this God. Kupatikas is the word translated accountable.

It's the only time in the Greek New Testament it appears. It's a word that means under, hupa, decay, the sentence of justice, under the sentence of divine justice. Kramer writes, it speaks of one who is bound to suffer what is imposed for the sake of justice because he has neglected to do what is right. Abbott and Smith define it this way as someone who is brought to trial. In other words, Paul is saying that all the world eventually in that final judgment we call the Great White Throne will be brought to trial before God and even now is under the sweeping declaration that they are in fact even now under the sentence of guilt. It includes all of humanity of all time.

And did you notice in that verse, the middle part of verse 19, how that mankind will step up to that throne and give this wonderfully articulate defense? Go back and look. What is the world doing?

What does it say? Every mouth will be what? Will be closed. See this is the exact opposite of especially the American thought of justice. This is the opposite of a court of law.

There in a human court of law is expert defense, witness and testimony to trial by our peers. But our peers are also sinful. They can excuse sinful behavior. They may even be bribed and influence others toward a wrong verdict. Even the judges aren't always upright in their decisions.

They can also make mistakes. There are innocent people that have served time in prison. Human law and the exercising of it and the application of it is an inexact and imperfect science. Human law has loopholes. We can plead extenuating circumstances. And even if we lose our case, we can appeal to a higher court. And if we lose there, we can appeal to an even higher court.

And even after all of our appeals are exhausted we end up in prison. We can write letters and write books and have movies made about our lives. And we can do anything but be quiet. Paul says here at this scene there is silence. Silence. If you wonder what the scene is like at the Great White Throne he tells us there is absolute silence. Paul declares that man is indefensible so he is silent and man is indefensible because man is inexcusable in his sin.

Why is that? Look at the latter part of his sentence beginning in verse 20. Because by the works of the law no flesh will be justified in his sight. For through the law comes the knowledge of sin. In other words nobody will ever get to heaven by keeping the law because no one can, first of all. But secondly one of the reasons God gave the law was to simply prove that mankind couldn't keep it. Paul says for through the law comes the knowledge of sin. Now that doesn't excuse our sin.

It just reveals to us that we are sinners. J.B. Phillips was a British scholar of the New Testament language. He paraphrased the New Testament. I have a copy of his New Testament in my library. Because he was English he occasionally used British terms for concepts that throw wonderful light.

I've always enjoyed reading his text. It just gives new light like Romans chapter 3 verse 20. In England, at least in his generation, a ruler or a yardstick was called a straight edge.

And so when Phillips came to this verse and wanted to paraphrase for through the law comes the knowledge of sin, he wrote it this way, indeed it is the straight edge of the law that shows us how crooked we are. That's good, isn't it? Have you ever tried to hang wallpaper? Have you ever tried to hang wallpaper with stripes in it? That will destroy your marriage.

I'm not speaking from experience but I'll get the picture. Well, you're hanging that wallpaper and everything is going along fine until you come to that window. And can you believe the builder built that window crooked like that? It's at this terrible angle.

No, the truth is what? You're hanging the wallpaper crooked. You fuss and fume about it and there's nothing else you can do but take it down and start over or you can hang pictures crooked like it so it kind of makes it disappear, hang flowers or do something. But the straight edge of that window frame will never straighten that wallpaper out. It's not going to lend a hand. It can only reveal that you've hung your wallpaper in a crooked fashion.

When you go out and you drive and you see that speed limit sign that says 45 miles an hour, that sign, that declaration of law will never help you drive in a law abiding fashion. The only thing it will do is reveal to you whether or not you are. You go back to the analogy of the mirror. You look in the mirror and you see a dirty face. The mirror will never wash your face.

It will only reveal that you're dirty. You look into the mirror and it varies specifically without apology, without holding anything back shows you that you need to wash, you need to shave, you need to get a comb or a brush out. You see the function of the mirror is to compel you, to urge you, to invite you to pick up the brush and comb your hair.

But it is powerless to comb it for you. So also the law is God's gift to us not to make us feel guilty but to show us why we are. The law didn't make you guilty. People try to erase the law in other lives thinking they'll feel better. The law doesn't do that. It simply proves why we feel that way because we are. So the law will never convert.

It can only challenge. So for the one that says I'm going to get into heaven because I'm really trying to keep the law has missed the point of the law. The one who says I'm going to try my best to be moral and upstanding and clean living, that person is in effect asking the mirror to wash his face.

It cannot do it. And so the law can show you how crooked and dirty your heart is but it is powerless to wash the sin away. You see my friends as Paul summarizes here, what he's about to do is introduce the Savior to the sinner. But he has spent nearly three chapters first preparing the soil by introducing the sinner to his need for a Savior. He has described in living color the great chasm between God and man, this terrible abyss created by the sinfulness and depravity of mankind. But then he will and will begin with great earnestness to look at what Paul describes for us as the divine connection that bridges this deep chasm.

He will describe for us Jesus Christ. And the bridge that began like that little kite string, just a simple birth of a little baby, conceived by the Holy Spirit, yes, but just a little baby, that string pulled across a heavier string we could call Christ's blameless and sinless life. And with that a rope was then returned across the abyss. It was Christ's miraculous authentication of his claim to be God in the flesh, Messiah, Christos. Then that pulled an even heavier rope. It was his unblemished living that allowed him to hang on that cross and pay the penalty for the sins of the world. And finally that could pull across that steel cable which anchors our redemption.

We call it the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. That bridge now would be and could be constructed upon and through and in and all about the life and person of Jesus Christ who would say, I am the way. I am the truth. I am the life.

No one comes to the Father except by me. It's another way of saying you can't get to heaven unless you walk across the bridge that I have not only designed but the material of which is my life, death and resurrection. There's a British poet that I came across in one of the commentaries I was reading in this text.

His name was Robert Herrick. He lived about the same time as William Shakespeare and he pulled from classical mythology in which the Greek hero Hercules was given the impossible task of cleaning the stables, the filthy stables of King Augeas. He compared the human heart to the stable as he wrote, Lord, I confess that thou alone art able to purify this Augean stable.

Be the seas, water and all the lands soap. Yet if thy blood not wash me, there is no hope. Paul has, under the inspiring influence of the Spirit of God, finished his first thought in this letter and he has accomplished his goal.

He has basically brought the whole of humanity before the throne of God and shown man why at that moment they will be able to say nothing. There is no prayer for judgment then. It's too late to pray. But I want you to know that that's still a future scene. It's a future scene which means that there is still time to pray. There is still time to believe.

The right time to trust Jesus Christ is now. This is Wisdom for the Heart with Stephen Davey. We have information to help you understand more of the gospel of Jesus Christ and how you can be saved. It's posted on our website and you'll find it under the About tab on our home page. Our web address is wisdomonline.org.

We call it God's Wisdom for Your Heart. It's also on our app for your phone or tablet so you can take it wherever you go and use it as a tool for sharing with others. We also offer a supply of printed copies if it's something that you might want to be able to share and give away with others.

Information about that is also on our website. Or you can call us today at 866-48-BIBLE. The lesson you heard today comes from a series called The Depravity of Man, The Deliverance of God. It's actually the eighth and final lesson in that series. So I want to make you aware of some corresponding resources.

This series is available as a set of CDs or as a digital download. We also have a booklet called The Depravity of Man, The Deliverance of God. And again, all of these resources are at wisdomonline.org or you can call us at 866-48-BIBLE.

That's 866-482-4253. I want to share a couple notes we received. Susie from Wichita, Kansas said, Thanks for your wonderful ministry. I try to listen to the daily broadcasts every day and use the sermon transcripts and Steven's books to enhance the Bible study I lead in my home. I've been a leader in Bible study fellowship for many years and I'm so appreciative of the depth of his research and the personal applications to share with my ladies in that group. I appreciate the opportunity to contribute in a small way.

So thanks again. You all certainly illustrate how to glorify the Lord and Savior and you bless so many through your diligent teaching of the word. Well, thanks Susie. And Michael from Texas said my day would not be the same if I couldn't listen to Steven each morning on the radio. His messages are so insightful, interesting and biblically sound. I thank God each day that he's allowing me the opportunity to tune in to wisdom for the heart on BBN radio. Well, thanks Michael. And thanks to all of our wisdom partners who make this ministry possible. We're grateful. And if you'd like to send us a note, address it to info at wisdom online.org. Have a great weekend and join us Monday for more wisdom for the heart.