Romans Chapter Three Lesson 35

Review:

3:12 They have all, immoral pagan, the moralist, the religious type, have turned aside, [turned away from God, from truth], they have become useless;

- From the point of the fall on, the human race has turned aside from God's way and from His truth and have in their unregenerate state become worthless, rotten, useless from God's vpt.

If one's character is unrighteous as the evaluation of God says it is;

- then it logically follows that one's conduct will also be unrighteous.

3:13a first line is a quote comes from Psa. 5:9

The throat being an open grave, gives vent to the corruption of the heart under the sin nature's rulership; implied is the inner corruption and its effects;

- Since the UB'r is dead, as far as God is concerned, [Eph 2:1-3] nothing but corruption and death can come out of his mouth

3:13b line 2 With their tongues they keep deceiving dolio,w imperfect = habitual practice since the fall.

- The Psalm speaks of the smooth tongue, today we might say, they butter them up, tell them what they want to hear; Psa. 52:2-4 applies

3:13c "The poison of asps is under their lips."

The asp speaks of an Egyptian cobra which has a sack of poison under its lips.

- We have a moral poison sac that the mouth, the tongue, the lips can tap into to spew forth our venom like words; sin nature.

Quote Comes from Psa 140:3

3:14 "Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness."

- Quote is from Psa. 10:7 context emphasizes the treachery of those who use and abuse others with their tongue, speech.

bitterness is an attitude that speaks of animosity towards someone or as is often the case toward God for the circumstances of your life, an ingrained view you deserve more than you have!

In 3:15-17 Move from sins of the Tongue to overt sins of action.

- Just as man's words are deceitful so are his ways destructive.

- The quote here is from Isa 59:7-8

- Will Durrant wrote in his Lessons from History: "In the last 3421 years of recorded history only 268 have seen no war."

William Newel: commenting at this point says, For further details read your daily newspaper.

- Should not be surprising then that in vs:16 it follows with "destruction and misery are in their paths" [manner of life]

3:17 "And the way of peace they have not known."

Look at the wider context is speaking of the unrighteous in Israel;

59:1-15; also 57:20-21

3:18 Gives us the reason, the underlying cause for man’s character, his conduct, that was described from vs:10-18.

- We find here the sinner's arrogant pride detailed

What happens when you rip God totally out of the picture, out of our lives? Out of a nation?

From this context you must conclude that there will be sucked into the resulting vacuum, corruption, deception, violence, murder;

Root underlying cause is that there is no fear of God before their eyes.

After the giving of the Decalogue to the people of Israel, Moses told them that one of the reasons that God gave them the Decalogue was so that the fear of Him may remain with them so that they would not sin. [Ex. 20:20; Dt. 10:12]