In his sermon, Pastor Steve Hopkins explores the themes in Romans 3:9-18, emphasizing the universal sinfulness of humanity. He discusses how both Jews and Gentiles are equally under sin and that no one is righteous before God. The sermon highlights the necessity of 'circumcision of the heart,' explaining that true change must be internal rather than merely outward. Pastor Hopkins underscores humanity's innate sinfulness and the inability to seek God without divine intervention. He contrasts humanity's sinful nature with the redemptive nature of Jesus Christ, who alone provides peace and reconciliation with God. The sermon concludes by urging listeners to examine their own spiritual state and to recognize the need for God's grace for salvation.

Welcome back to Barnet Bible Church. Join us this week as Pastor Hopkins continues his sermon series through the Book of Romans. It is a real joy and a real privilege to be able to stand in the pulpit again. Praise God. If you would turn in your Bibles with me once again to the the book of Romans.

We're going to be picking up Lord willing with chapter 3 and verse 9 and working our way through verse 18. And if you would stand with me for the reading of the Word of the Lord, We'll read together, beginning with verse 9. Let's read. What then? Are we better than they?

No, in no 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. Their throat is an open sepulcher, with their tongues they have used to seat. 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 ways, and in the way of peace they have not known.

There is no fear of God before their eyes. Let's pray. Our Father which art in heaven, high over all, Lord we pray that your name might be hallowed in this place today. Oh God, that your kingdom might come with power, that you might grant spiritual insight, oh God, to those to whom you have given eyes to see and ears to hear this morning. Oh God that you would grant your people understanding as we open your holy word.

And oh that your spirit might do a mighty work in the hearts and the minds and the lives of every soul in this place, oh God. For we ask it in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. Let's be seated. Again, Paul has been speaking to his brethren according to the flesh, to his fellow Hebrew brethren, his fellow Jews, since the beginning of chapter 2, and he has explained to them the significance of circumcision and what it means to truly be a Jew.

You remember from our last session, he's explained to his Hebrew brethren that one is not truly a Jew who is merely one outwardly, but that he is truly a Jew who is one inwardly. And in the same way, circumcision in the flesh or of the flesh is nothing and means nothing apart from circumcision of the heart, even as the Old Testament prophets also spoke. He's been telling them that the outward sign of circumcision in one's flesh means nothing except there be an inward change of heart in the spirit. Circumcision of the heart is what matters in God's sight, which equates with conversion. And those who are circumcised in heart are the true people of God.

They are Jews inwardly. And in our last session, Paul, anticipating the response of his Jewish brethren, according to the flesh, his Hebrew brethren, answered the question that would naturally have come to their minds. What advantage then hath the Jew? What advantage does the Jew then have? If being a physical descendant of Abraham doesn't save anyone, and if being set apart by the outward sign of circumcision doesn't make one accepted in the sight of God, then what possible advantage is there in being a Jew?

To which the apostle responded, a lot. We looked at that last week, much in every way, he says, chiefly the fact that under the Jews was committed the oracles of God. Jericho also mentioned when he was speaking, As I said in our last session, God didn't entrust His Word to the Amalekites. God didn't entrust His word to the Moabites. God didn't entrust His word to the Ammonites or any other Aites other than the Israelites.

God never spoke through a Philistine. He never committed His word to the Babylonians. God chose to commit his oracles, his God-breathed word, to the physical descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, which is Israel. And he's telling them, you're the sons of Israel. So yes, there is a benefit here.

And there is no greater advantage than to be among the favored people to whom the revelation of God alone was committed. To be among the people to whom God alone deposited and entrusted His Word. To grow up being exposed to the law and the prophets, what a great advantage is that over the Gentiles? But possessing the Word of God isn't enough. Remember we went through that.

It must be believed. And many of them did not believe. And then after dealing with the several anticipated objections from the Jews and a slanderous mischaracterization of his doctrine, Paul returns to the question of the state of man before God, pressing the fact that it is not an ethnic Jew versus non-Jew question. So as we pick up with Romans chapter 3 verse 9, the apostle asks the question, what then? Are we better than they?

He's talking about we, my Jewish brethren according to the flesh. Are we better than the Gentiles? We were entrusted with the Word of God. Again, he's anticipating a question, and the question is, are we Jews not better, not in the sense of morally better, but better off than the Gentiles when it comes to our standing before God. Don't we, the question is, don't we have an advantage in God's sight over those who are not the physical descendants of Abraham?

Aren't we like kind of a step up in the sight of God because of our heritage? Come on, the Word of God was entrusted to us. No, Paul says, not in any way, shape or form. No. Yes, in every way you had the advantage over the Gentiles having the law and the prophets in your possession and having access to the Word of God that others did not have access to, but in no way, shape or form with regards to your standing before God.

In no way with regards to your standing before God. We've already proved that. Gentiles, you remember from our previous studies, Gentiles who sin without the law, they perish without the law, even though they were never exposed to the Word of God or to the law of God. Jews who sin under the law perish, notwithstanding the fact that the oracles of God were committed to them. We've already proved, Paul says, concerning both Jews and Gentiles that they're all under sin.

Has everyone been getting this? All under sin. Jews and Gentiles stand on equal footing before a holy God. Everyone in this room today stands on an equal footing before God, whether you're Jew or Gentile. We're all under sin.

If you underline anything in your Bibles this morning or if you're taking any notes this morning please underline this, all under sin. Do you? That means me. Everyone who's ever lived, everyone who's alive now, everyone who will ever live, all under sin. Friends, this is the universal indictment of all mankind that the Apostle Paul has been driving home for more than two chapters.

All are under sin. It doesn't matter what your background is, it doesn't matter what nation you came from, it doesn't matter what era you were born in, it doesn't matter whether you were born Jew or Gentile, it doesn't matter whether you had access to the Word of God or you never had access to the Word of God? Everyone comes into the world on equal footing before God Almighty under sin, under sin, under sin. What does that mean? Under the power of sin, under the dominion of sin, weighed down under the guilt of sin and Thus under the sentence of condemnation for sin Everyone comes into the world on equal footing be they Jew or Gentile You may have seen cars at some point displaying a bumper sticker with an equal sign on it.

Anyone ever seen that? Yeah. They don't mean good stuff with that, by the way. I always comment to the family whenever I see one of those, those people are under the false notion that there's a such thing as equal in the world. When there's not, there are no two equal things in all of creation.

Anyone who studies science knows that. Not even two snowflakes will you find they're identical or equal to each other. There is a variation and there is inequality at everything on earth, but there is one thing in which there is absolute equality. Every person ever born or who will ever be born is on equal footing before God with regards to their standing before God. All are under sin.

All are under sin. All are justly condemned and under the sentence of divine condemnation. Everyone enters the world in the same way. We're not Pelagians. We went through that who believe that you're a tabula rasa.

You're just a open sheet of paper to be written on after you're born, and you learn sin from the things you see? No. We believe that man has inherited corruption from his first parents, Adam and Eve, and that corruption results in actual transgression. You don't have to teach a child to sin. I've got 16 children.

We've got 16 children. I've got to give my wife some of the credit for that, right? She has 16 children. We have 16 children and I'm here to tell you, you don't have to teach any amount of sin. They're little sinners.

They come forth as David said from the womb speaking lies. They hit other children, they steal from each other, they cry and throw fits so they don't get their way. Everyone comes into the world the same way. In the words of Sproul, we are not Sinners because we sin, we sin because we are sinners. We have a corrupted nature from which spews forth all of the sins of humankind.

Calvin comments here, the apostle has summoned all mankind universally before the tribunal of God. Then they might include all under the same condemnation. To be under sin means that we are justly condemned as sinners before God. Do you believe that about yourself? Justly condemned as sinners before God.

God is just and His condemnation of us as violators of His law is just. Remember from our last session, Paul quoted David from Psalm 51, that penitential Psalm, the Psalm where David is repentant. He's been confronted by Nathan. He committed adultery with Bathsheba and had her husband killed. David will vindicate God's justice in the condemnation of himself.

Have you ever done that? Have you vindicated God's justice in the condemnation of yourself? David says God is just in condemning him for his sin. David doesn't try to wiggle out of any part of his offenses. He doesn't extenuate the circumstances like we do.

He knows that God would be justified in punishing him however he chooses. Again, I'll quote Sproul. Sproul says, so David throws himself on the mercy of the court. Has that ever been your experience? You know you're justly condemned before God and you threw yourself on the mercy of the court of Jesus Christ.

Oh God, be merciful to me a sinner. You're just in your condemnation of me. I throw myself upon the mercy of the court of Christ, David's only hope and our only hope also in the presence of a holy God. Amen? All are under sin.

Paul says, what is true of the Jew is true of the Gentile. Both Jew and Gentile alike are under sin. Both Jew and Gentile are alike under the power of sin. Both Jew and Gentile alike are under sin. Both Jew and Gentile are alike under the power of sin.

Both Jew and Gentile alike are under the dominion of sin, under the heavy weight of the guilt of sin, and thus under the just sentence of divine condemnation for sin." Say, wow, lots of bad news. Well, before the good news, the Apostle Paul will drive home the bad news. And the bad news is really bad. The bad news is really bad. Man is not merely imperfect or tainted with sin.

When I get to this right here, I've had people get up and walk out, and that's fine with me. That's fine with me. Man is not merely imperfect or tainted with sin. The Apostle Paul says there is a none righteous, no not one. There's none righteous.

In the natural state in which man enters the world he is, as the Purists used to say, nothing but sin from the crown of his head to the sole of his feet. And every person on earth who has ever been on earth or ever will be on earth, with the exception of God's Son, is in the same boat, not sinking deep in sin far from the peaceful shore, as that faulty hymn put it, but capsized and sunk to the bottom of the ocean floor. That's the state in which man enters into the world. Dead and trespasses and sins, the apostle Paul says. And all of humanity is on the boat, not sick in sin, but spiritual corpses dead in trespasses and sins.

Do you believe that about yourself? I was just sick in sin and he's a little, I'm a physician. I was just sinking a little bit in sin and he needed someone to reach out and then I reach out, you know. No, no my friends. All of humanity is on the boat, not sick and sin, but spiritual corpses dead in trespasses and sins, not buried deeply stained within, no.

But utterly corrupted in all the faculties of body and soul. Do you believe that? Without a spark of goodness to be found to fan into a flame. You see you have the Pelagians. God gives us, they say, we got to, God gave us everything we need.

We can obey whatever God has told us to do. We can do it. He gives us that. It's built in. Then you have the semi-Pelagians that come along, Roman Catholicism, Armenians or what have you.

They come along and say, no, we just need a little help. You know, God gives us help, and we respond to the help that God gives us. No. No, we're dead and trespassed in sins with total inability to do anything of any spiritual good. I know it makes churchgoers today angry to hear someone say that there was nothing good in them to respond to God before their conversion, but that is the truth.

Before your conversion, before you were brought to saving faith by God, and it was a totally act and a work of God, you being dead in your trespasses and sins, a spiritual dead corpse can't reach out to God for anything. In our pride, we desperately want to hold on to some vestige of righteousness within. We want to think of ourselves as men and women who just needed some prodding to get us going in the right direction. But that's not where we were in the unregenerate state. And it makes us mad when we're confronted with it.

Because the alternative is too painful for our pride to bear. Utter self-condemnation, like David? No, sorry. That may have been been you, or that may have been Hitler, that may have been Jeffrey Dahmer, but not me. No.

The alternative is an acknowledgement that in the unregenerate state in which we were born we're all men dead in trespasses and sins. We are men dead in trespasses and sins, spiritual corpses who need a mighty God, who need a mighty God to call them out of the grave like Lazarus and who will not come out of the grave unless he does. Do you believe that about you, yourself? You would never have come out of that state of being a spiritually dead corpse, dead in trespasses and sins unless God Almighty had called you out of the grave and He doesn't call everyone out. It was past Wednesday when I was street preaching in the streets of Burnet with our half-mile haler that could be heard by crowds of up to 5, 000 and a half mile away.

My sons were handing out the Bibles. By the way, they handed out 33, a record number this week. There have been a thousand Bibles handed out on that street corner, bless God. But a man pulled up in his truck and he was a little bit upset. He said, I've been here before.

I've got a Bible from you all months ago. I'm watching, you know, I listen to whatever from time to time as you preach. He said, but I want to know why you wear black when you street preach. And I said, well you know all the preachers used to wear black and when I was a boy here in Burnett County they preached out of the back of pickup trucks on the city square, you know that? Yeah, no one partly preaches in the streets anymore.

Charles Spurgeon said, you haven't done your job as a pastor, you haven't fulfilled your duties as a pastor if you're not also preaching in the open air. That's what he said. All of them used to do it. Now we're coiled in our little churches where we're protected from the venom and vitriol of the world. No, go out and expose yourself to it.

It's okay. Anyways, he said to this guy, says, well, you look like the devil's disciple. You're black. And I said, you know, you want to know why I wear black? I wear black when I preach in the streets because the entire world is a graveyard filled with spiritually dead corpses.

It's a graveyard apart from Jesus Christ, and preaching on the streets is like preaching at a funeral. And it's sad, but I have to say that I fear that our churches in America for the most part are graveyards. We've got a problem in America, not just Canada. Preachers are telling people they're not really that bad. You're not really that bad.

You just need a little reforming. Or maybe you just need to get on a program like the 12 Steps program. That's a false doctrine, by the way, straight out of the pit of hell. And it's infected churches all over this country. 12 Steps is not the gospel of Jesus Christ.

One step. Two, repent and believe. No. A man needs to be resurrected from death to life, and that is a thing that God alone can do. Paul once said, Am I now your enemy because I tell you the truth?

It's like you've been with me till now, but Now I've become your enemy because I told you the truth Galatians 4 16 Job said Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? Job follows with the same words Paul used, not one. There was none righteous, no, not one. Not one. Same words Paul used.

There's nothing good in unregenerate man to bring out. Do we understand that? In the unregenerate state in which you were born, there was nothing good to bring out. It's not like God's trying to prod you with the gospel in order to bring out, you know, some spark that's in you and fan it into a flame of faith. That's not it.

There's nothing good in us to bring out. God has to change us from the inside out. God has to do it. Paul said, I know that in me that is in my flesh dwelleth no good thing. Nothing.

Jeremiah said, the heart is deceitful above a lot of things. No. He said above all things. You believe that about your heart in the unregenerate state before you came to saving faith that your heart was deceitful above all things, even the devil? All things.

All things means all things. You believe that about yourself? Desperately wicked, he says, above all things. And desperately wicked, who could know it? Jeremiah 17, 9.

The Apostle Paul quotes then Old Testament passages as his proof text. He says, as it is written, citing Psalm 14, 1, there is none righteous, no, not one. Whenever the apostle Paul or one of the prophets, one of the writers in the Old Testament or the New Testament, state something twice. They're trying to get it across. They're trying to make sure they will not be misunderstood.

He states the same fact twice. There's none righteous. No, not one. He will not be misunderstood. In the utterly corrupted state in which every one of us is born, no one is acceptable to God.

No one's acceptable to God. I know it doesn't fit with some of the billboards you see out there, but I'm telling you the church is in a state of utter decline in this country and has been for a long, long time, and we need to return to the truths that were preached from about the 1940s back instead of the nonsense that's being preached today. There is none righteous, no not one, and of course, then it follows there is none that understandeth. Uh-oh. Oh boy.

Ouch. There's none that understandeth. What in the world does he mean? That's the old Reformation doctrine of spiritual inability. Spiritual inability, 1 Corinthians 2 14.

You do not have spiritual understanding in the unregenerate state in which you were born. What does it say in 1 Corinthians 2 14? The natural man doesn't receive the things of the Spirit of God. Why? They're foolishness to him.

And then he says this, neither can, that word has to do with ability, neither can he know them. He doesn't have the ability within him. You cannot pull yourself up by your own spiritual bootstraps. It all comes from God. Salvation is of God.

He goes on to say he can't know them. Why? Because they're spiritually discerned. 1 Corinthians 2, 14. The things of God are spiritually discerned.

He doesn't have the Spirit of God in him until and unless God regenerates him. Then his eyes are opened and he can see the kingdom of God. That's what Jesus said to Nicodemus. Except to be born again, you can't see the kingdom of God. New birth comes before faith.

Not the other way around. It's not, well, I believed and God rewarded me with, you know, eternal life. No. God did the work in you first, if you're a believer, and he changed your heart, and he brought you to the place where you would believe, he changed your will which was bent against him and now change it to where you're no longer against him but for him and have spiritual discernment and understanding and the desire to serve God. We cannot understand the things of God in the unregenerate state because we're dead to them.

We're dead to the things of God and we're dead to God. We're dead to interest in God. Just like Adam and Eve. What did Adam and Eve do after they sinned? They run to God, oh God, please save me.

Oh, he beat on their breast. God be merciful to me, a sinner. No, they ran from God. It says they ran from the presence of God. That's what the scripture says.

They don't want anything to do with God anymore. They ran from the presence of God. They got fig leaves to try to cover their nakedness. What's that? Human works.

They tried to cover their shame with human works. They knew they were naked. They didn't want God looking at them. They don't want God pursuing them. And what happens?

God goes to them. God walked in the garden and found them, Adam and Eve. And what did he do? He saved them. How do we know?

He killed an animal, and he shed the blood of that animal, and he clothed them in clothes that he made from those animals. Peter doesn't like that verse, by the way. The no fur people? No. God made the first fur coat.

Why? To cover their nakedness. Why? To point them to the coming of Jesus Christ, whose righteousness alone can cover sinning man and make us accepted in the sight of a holy God. That's what happened in the Garden of Eden.

The gospel is already being preached. What happened in the garden pointed us to Christ in whose righteousness alone we must be clothed in order to stand before a holy God. There is none, he goes on, that seeketh after God. Oh boy, well you talk about stepping on toes. There's none that seeketh after God.

There is no such thing as a seeker. You've heard of churches that are called themselves seeker friendly churches? Forget it. God says there are no seekers. No one seeks after God.

What? What do you mean that no one seeks after God? These churches order their services to appeal to those who may be seeking after God. But God says there are no seekers. There is none that seeketh after God.

That hurts. We seek after God only after He has sought us out in our lost condition and found us first. God isn't lost, we are. We're the ones that need to be found, not God. Again, Adam and Eve running from God and hiding in the bushes.

God comes for them. He found them. The Apostle Paul on the road to Damascus seeking to imprison Christians. Jesus comes to him on the road of Damascus. He didn't go to Jesus and repent.

God knocks him off his horse. The light from heaven or camel or whatever. We seek God only after God has sought us out and found us in our lost condition. God isn't lost, man is. So what about those scriptures?

Seek the Lord while he may be found. Isaiah 55-6, that was written to those who are believers, written to believers. Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If any man opens to me, I will come in and sup with him. And he was written to the church.

Revelation 3 20. It's written to believers, not to unbelievers. Seek and you shall find knock on the door of the opener to you. Matthew 7 7 is written to the church. Not written to unbelievers.

There's a nun that seeketh after God ever. No, we seek God. When God has sought us out and saved us, we begin to seek Him. That's the result. That's what happens.

We now begin to seek Him, But none seeks after God in the unregenerate state. They're all gone out of the way. Verse 12, they're all together become unprofitable. There is none that doeth good, no not one. Uh-oh, here we go again.

There's no one that does good, not one. In the unregenerate state, nobody does anything good. But what about people that go and they buy, you know, cans of food and they give it to the food bank to give to people that are hungry. Isn't that good? They're unregenerate.

They don't, they're not born again yet. They just, but they're doing good, right? Well, By whose standard? By man's standard of good or God's standard of good not by God's standard I'll give you an example if I give food to the local food bank to feed the poor have I done a good thing? Well, that depends The first and greatest commandment is to love the Lord, my God, with all my heart, with all my soul, with all my strength, and with all my mind.

Did I do that deed out of love for God? Did I do that deed with a view to the glory of God, or because it made me feel good, or some other fleshly motivation, or worldly motivation. There is none that doeth good. We just have to get that through our thick skulls. There is none that doeth good.

No one does good in the unregenerate state. There is no good whatsoever that's done in the unregenerate state because our motivations are never pure But God provided that food that I thank him for it the atheist on the way to the food bank Is he go? Oh, thank God you provided this food. I'm gonna give it out of love for you. No, of course not It's beneficial People do all kinds of things that are beneficial to others in the emigrant state, but never do they do good, because to do good they have to do it out of love and gratefulness to God and with a view to His glory.

If you leave out the love of God and gratefulness to God and serving Him and doing whatever is supposedly good with a view to His glory, if you leave all that out, that's not good. It's not good. And then what follows as we draw to our close are graphic word pictures of the corruption of man's nature and the wickedness of man that marks his ways. Their throat is an open sepulcher. Think of yourself in the un-regenerate state.

That is before you came to faith in Christ. With their tongues they've used deceit, the poison of asps is under their lips. These are metaphors to show the corruption of man and the depths of that corruption whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness. I've never heard so much cursing and bitterness. I have in recent times.

By the way, cursing and bitterness go together. Show me a man who's cursing all the time. I'll show you a bitter man, bitter man. Their feet are swift to shed blood. Oh, we know that.

Destruction and misery are in their ways. Last page out of 12. And the way of peace they have not known. There is no fear of God before their eyes. As we close, I want you to notice that Jesus is the opposite of all of these.

Christ is the opposite of all of them. Man's throat is an open grave. Jesus is the resurrection and the life. He said, he that believes on me, though he were dead, yet shall he live. Amen?

Man's tongue, his lips, look at the text there, his tongue, his lips, his mouth are all corrupt and used for evil. Truth flows from Jesus' lips. He is the embodiment of truth, the truth that sets men free. His words are the wonderful words of life, as we sang in the hymn earlier. Man is swift to shed innocent blood.

Jesus sheds his own blood that his people might live. He lays it down his life that we might live. He sheds his own blood that we might live. With Jesus is peace with God. The way of peace they have not known with Him is peace with God.

With Him is reconciliation to God and life eternal with exceeding joy in the presence of God forever. Amen. Let's pray. Father, we do ask, Lord, again, that your spirit might do a mighty work, O God, in the heart and the lives of your people, and also, Lord, in the unregenerate that may be here today, our children or even those of us Lord who think that we're saved but are not, Lord we pray that your Word will have found a place in our heart that you will have convicted us, oh God, where we need conviction and implanted faith in the heart, Lord, where there has been faithlessness. God we ask for that work of your spirit, God that no man can do a work of yours to take your holy word, the sword of the spirit which is the word of God and wield it upon every heart.

Oh God, we pray that there will be souls that will be saved today. We pray, Lord, that your people have been encouraged and grown in the grace and in the knowledge of Christ. We pray, God, that as we approach this table set apart from all others and share in this bread and this cup showing Jesus' death for us, oh God, that we would examine ourselves before as your word commands, before we say to all the world, Jesus died for me. And with that God, we commit this next few minutes Lord to you as we share in the Lord's table. Be with us oh God, for we ask it in Jesus' name, Amen.