Do you want to see the X-rays?

Romans 3:9-20

 

            Wednesday, October 15, 2003, 17 months ago, the feeding tube was removed from Terri Schiavo’s mouth. The next Monday a statement was made by her grieving husband.  Among the things he said were, “for years after Terri was hurt, I tried desperately to find a cure for her.  I went from one doctor to another.  Almost all of them told me there was no possibility she would recover.  Any doctor that gave me a glimmer of hope that some new treatment or therapy would work was given free reign with Terri.  I would do anything to make her well.  I took her to California.  I took her to Mediplex, in Bradenton, Florida, which is a residential rehabilitation facility that specializes in brain injuries.  Finally, the doctors and therapist told me they could do nothing more for her.  I stubbornly resisted the suggestion that Terri was in a persistent vegetative state and would never get better.”

            “I never wanted Terri to die. I still don't. After more than seven years of desperately searching for a cure for Terri, the death of my own mother helped me realize that I was fooling myself. More important, I was hiding behind my hope, and selfishly ignoring Terri's wishes.  I wanted my wife to be with me so much that I denied her true condition.  It has been hard.  In fact, it is the hardest thing I have ever done. In the end, I did what I believe Terri would have wanted me to do.  The reality is that Terri left us 13 years ago, and none of us can bring her back.  Please pray for us all as we grieve.”

            It sounds like the plea of a grieving husband, doesn’t it?  It may not be.  That’s what it seems to be, at least on the outside, in the words he uses.  But X-rays or a MRI may give a different picture.  There is a difference between what we see on the outside of people and what is actually inside.  And the difference may be enormous. Fortunately for Terri the feeding tube was re-inserted before she starved to death.

            Paul is arguing that everyone in the world is a sinner.  No one is free from sin’s horrible tentacles.  The incredible thing is that very few people in the world look like the person he describes.  Could you believe that we have here a church full of sinners?  Two weeks ago we spent time in 1:18-32 which pointed out that the “bad” people are bad – referring to the murderers, the rapists, the homosexuals, like Brian Nichols, who Friday overpowered a deputy’s guard, shooting her in the face, and then killing three other people as he escaped.  Last Sunday we were in chapter two which emphasized that the “good” people are likewise bad – referring to the gossips and slanderers and proud and self sufficient and self centered.  Today we are going to look at Paul’s summary statement of the true condition of the human race.  Here’s the X-ray, or MRI, which includes not only the pictures, but includes the doctor’s interpretation as to why the patient is in such bad condition.  And Michael Schiavo is an example of the truth of the X-ray.

 

I.  X-rays show that everyone has sin-cancer (3:9-12). 

9 What then? Are we better than they? Not at all. For we have previously charged both Jews and Greeks that they are all under sin (under the power of sin). 10 As it is written: "There is none righteous, no, not one; 11 There is none who understands; There is none who seeks after God. 12 They have all turned aside; They have together become unprofitable; There is none who does good, no, not one."

            Everyone is UNDER sin.  That means “under the power of.”  No one has succeeded in standing against the force called sin, or against its author, Satan.  It comes into our lives and takes over, it lurks in our systems in closets and underneath the carpets of our lives and comes out and bites us again and again.  Apart from Jesus Christ, we are powerless when facing the force.

            I want to focus on two phrases that reveal the power sin displays in everyone’s life.  “There is none that understands,” and “there is none who seeks after God.”  The first phrase, “there is none that understands,” identifies our problem.  It is mental.  Something has happened to our ability to reason and sort things out.  Our thinking processes have been darkened or clogged, or distorted.  We saw the beginning of this darkness in chapter one when people turned away from the light.  Because of that we live in a world of deception.  Like shopping for jewelry in a darkened jewelry store; no one can tell what is truly valuable.  Everyone is buying junk stuff at high prices because no one understands the truth.  Thus the power of sin is seen in its ability to distort our thinking.  

            As a result of this darkened condition, you have this little phrase in verse 11, “there is none who seeks after God.”  This is a rather surprising statement because you and I know people who “seek God.”  There are plenty of people in the world who are religious, who are seeking God seriously.  How can Paul say, “there is none who seeks after God?”  Isn’t that a rather blanket generalization?  No one seeks after God?  How can you say that with all the churches?  With all the religions?  With all the people who make great sacrifices to their god?

            There may be many people who look like they are seeking God, but the X-rays will show what is going on in their hearts.  And what do we see?  We see that people don’t understand who they are searching for.  Your search will always be misguided if you have the wrong concept in your mind as to what you are looking for.  Before you can seek a person you need to know something about that person.  Suppose I said to you, “I’d like for you to seek JasperRasper.”  Would you head right out the door to seek JasperRasper?  No, you would ask some questions.  Who is this?  Is this an animal?  A building?  A male?  A female?  Where would I expect to find her/him/it?  When you are “seeking God,” what are you seeking?  A person?  A force?  A higher power?  Higher than what?  A Santa Claus type person?  A police type person?  A Grandfather type person? 

            And where would you expect to find Him?  Where are you looking?  In your mind?   In a synthesis of all the great religious writings?  In meditation where you let your heart go to the great unknown, and hope that divinity will fill it?  Do you see the problem?  You can search for God all your life and search in the wrong place.  You may even think you have found God and discover in eternity that what you found was false. 

            For example, the Aztecs sought God.  They even “obeyed” him.  But how?  Some time ago the National Gallery of Art hosted a huge collection of art finds from Aztec ruins.  At the center of the exhibit, was a massive stone jaguar more than 7 feet long and 4 feet wide.  In the middle of the jaguar's back was a round opening where Aztec priests threw hearts torn from human victims because the Aztecs made human sacrifices on a mass scale.  Why?  They believed that the sun was fed by human hearts and human blood and that they as priests had the responsibility of keeping the sun alive by supplying hearts and blood. (The Calgary Herald, Sept 29, 1983).

            Think about what they were trying to do.  Were they seeking God?  They were definitely seeking A god.  And they were sincere, and serious, and obedient.  They weren’t turning away from what they knew about god even though it caused them much pain and grief to kill their children in order to get from them a heart to throw on the jaguar altar.  Do you see how people can claim to be absolutely faithful to their god at the same time that they are turning their back on the Creator and His Grace?

            Notice the horrible deception of the Aztec religion.  Sin misleads people so powerfully that even when they faithfully, sincerely, seek some higher power, they are duped. And they wind up worshiping a gory god of death who demands out of them the very heart of their culture, and they became a culture of death – all the while thinking that they are faithfully following god.  Do you see why Paul says, THEY DON’T UNDERSTAND, THEY DON’T SEEK GOD?

 

            Having said this, let me emphasize what may sound like a contradiction.  It is possible for someone to genuinely seek the Lord.  When that happens it occurs because of the work of the Holy Spirit in their lives convicting them of sin and righteousness and judgment, and opening their eyes, as John 16 says.  The Holy Spirit is opening their eyes to the Word of God and the Grace of God.  But apart from the Grace of God, and the gracious work of the Holy Spirit, noone is seeking God. 

            Are you “searching” for the God of Creation, the God who has already revealed Himself in many clear, unmistakable ways?  Or are you searching for one of your design, one that will cater to your special needs?  The deception in this area is massive. 

            Think of the deception surrounding Terri Schiavo’s situation.  The new date for the beginning of her death is this Friday, March 18.  Why is Terri going to die?  Has she been convicted of a crime?  No.  Is she on life support?  No.  She is a healthy 40 year old woman.  She breathes on her own without the aid of a ventilator.  She can swallow her saliva and follow people with her eyes and apparently has even given signs of moving her mouth to speak.  All she needs is a feeding tube into her stomach for liquids and nourishment.  She is brain damaged, because her heart failed for a short time 15 years ago due to some kind of trauma which cut off oxygen to her brain.

            Imagine that she was some monster serial killer in Florida.  She would be entitled to a trial by jury, independent counsel, competent representation and automatic review of her death penalty by the Supreme Court of Florida.  She has received none of these protections.  The simple fact is that her “husband” wants her dead.  He wants to pull the feeding tube so that over the course of one week to one month she would slowly suffer a painful death by starvation.  Suppose a serial killer were sentenced to die that way – by starvation or dehydration.  Do you know what would happen?  The courts would overturn that sentence as a violation of the prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment.  Isn’t that strange?  Here’s a healthy 40 year old woman who receives no protection from our courts against her husband, and is going to die a cruel and unusual death that we wouldn’t give to a serial killer!  Isn’t this amazing?  Do you see the confusion, the deception?  That’s sin.

 

II.  X-rays show that sin-cancer has invaded our MOUTHS (13-14).

13 "Their throat is an open tomb; With their tongues they have practiced deceit"; "The poison of asps is under their lips"; 14 "Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness."

            Where is the evidence that every single solitary person is dominated by the power of sin?  Our speech.  Every single person demonstrates his/her sin by his/her tongue.  Notice the words here, "throat," "tongues," "lips," "mouth."  Cancer has invaded our communication system.

 

            A.  What comes out of their throat stinks like an open tomb with a decaying body inside.  Verse 13 says, "their throat is an open tomb.”  They open their mouth to speak and it is like the opening of a tomb.  Talk about halitosis!   This is super sized halitosis.  The stench comes because something inside has rotted.

 

            B.  What comes through their tongues is twisted.   “With their tongues they have practiced deceit."  They have now developed the ability to “use deceit."  This announces our departure from truth and arrival at lies.  We now use words to cloud things up rather than to clarify things.  We create false ideas in the minds of others to escape the difficulty that the truth would bring to us, or to make ourselves appear wonderful, or to get something from someone else.  This word “deceit” is from a Greek word used for bait.  Our words now have become worms put on hooks used to catch people.  Anyone who accepts our words at face value will be “taken.”  Words are supposed to be gifts to people to help them understand, to encourage them and/or to create friendship, but we have learned to use words for other purposes that fit our sin nature more “profitably.”  What gets lost in the wash of our sin is the truth.  That’s why what comes out of our mouth stinks.

 

            C.  What comes through their lips is poisonous.  "The poison of asps is under their lips."  Rather than using words to bring people together, we now use words to stab and kill people – inflict damage on others.  Our lips are like that of the “asp,” apparently an Egyptian cobra, which carries poison in a bag under its lips!   Paul says, “your communication is like the Egyptian cobra.  You say something for the purpose of hurting someone, for the purpose of damaging someone’s reputation, for the purpose of pushing someone out of your life instead of inviting them in.  Like nuclear energy, we have transformed a gift from God, our tongues, our lips, communication, into WMDs! – weapons of mass destruction.  We have cleverly turned a God-given blessing into a relational weapon. 

 

            D.  What fills their mouths is garbage. 14 "Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness."  Instead of kindness, what comes out is cursing.  Instead of love and compassion, what exhales is bitterness.  And the word “full” implies that there is no famine here.  None of them are starving.  They have a seven-course meal of cursing and bitterness.  There is little respect, no honor, and they can slander anyone.  II Peter 2 speaks of false teachers this way: “They are presumptuous, self-willed. They are not afraid to speak evil of dignitaries (10). . . they “speak evil of the things they do not understand” (12).  These are the big mouths that talk down others.

 

            The evidence that sin dominates us speaks loudly through our tongues.  Communication is a gift from God intended to be used to bless the human condition.  But we twist words like clay and play with truth, turning words into bait, or poison darts that hurt badly.  We jam pack our words with covert cursing of others and bitterness because there is only one King of the Hill, and it isn’t anyone we know outside of ourselves.

            Notice the tongue of Michael Schiavo.  He said in his plea for prayer that I read to begin with, “I wanted my wife to be with me so much that I denied her true condition.”  How much did he want her to be with him?  Within a year and a half of her “accident” in 1990, he became intimately involved with a girl named Cindy Shook.  That lasted for more than a year.  By 1995 he started living with Jody Centonze and has had two children by her.  When he said in 2003, “I wanted my wife to be with me so much,” he had been living with Jody for eight years.  What he was doing was twisting words to re-write reality.  The truth is that if it was not for Michael, along with a Florida judge named George Greer, Terri would have no problem staying alive.  It’s Michael who demands that the feeding tube be removed.  How can you say “I wanted my wife to be with me” while you spend thousands of dollars attempting to get permission to kill her?  Do you see how his tongue reveals his deceit?  What he says doesn’t match what he does.

 

III.  X-rays show the invasion of sin-cancer into our HEARTS (15-18).

15 "Their feet are swift to shed blood; 16 Destruction and misery are in their ways; 17 And the way of peace they have not known.  There is no fear of God before their eyes."

            Now the X-ray gets to our root, our true inner motivations.  We like to shed blood – someone else’s of course.  And it’s not only that we shed blood, but that we are in a hurry to do it.  Certain people are expendable, we don’t need them, and we don’t need them in a hurry.  We are SWIFT at it.  It’s not only that we have seen destruction and misery, but that these awful things permeate our WAYS.  It’s not only that we rarely find peace, it’s that we don’t even know where to look.  Rather than viewing every other human as brother and sister, we choose to view certain of them as prey – someone to take, someone to get, someone to take out, someone to dispatch, someone to “service,” the enemy.  Sin has tragically re-arranged our root desires.

           

            I wonder why Michael Schiavo is so determined to starve his “wife” to death.  He has worked for more than eight years to get that feeding tube pulled out.  And one of his partners in this move against his wife is Florida’s Sixth Judicial Circuit Judge, George Greer, who has agreed with Michael time and time again and ordered the feeding tube pulled. 

            Apparently it doesn’t matter that her parents want to take care of her at their own expense, it matters not that Michael controls a $700,000-plus trust fund awarded for her care, it matters not that Michael has demonstrated his total unfaithfulness to this woman by living with others.  Here’s a man who wants his legal wife dead, after promising he would love and keep her as long as they both live.  And here is a court system in Florida that has at eight different times ruled that it is legal according to the laws of the state of Florida to execute this woman by starvation.  WHY?

            What possible root motivation would energize a man to say of his wife, “I never wanted Terri to die. I still don't,” as he is in the act of getting the courts to pull her plug?  There is evidence that Michael has a history of domestic violence.  He is 6 ft. 6 and 250 pounds.  Does he have something to hide?  There was a bone scan of Terri taken on March 5, 1991, about a year after her incident.  But the results were not made available for 11 years, until November, 2002, after a court order.  Why would the results of a simple bone scan be delayed that long?  Apparently the scan indicated numerous broken bones in various stages of healing, including compression fractures, a broken back, pelvis, ankle, bone bruises and ossifications.   Where did these come from?  They are not typical of someone who suffers cardiac arrest and collapses on the floor.  Several medical experts believe that it is very possible that Terri was the victim of foul play.  And when she went into cardiac arrest, her husband, who was trained in CPR, who was there, apparently did nothing to help her.

            One medical expert testified that the rigid condition of her neck indicates that she was probably strangled.  Prior to Terri’s collapse, there were alleged financial problems in their marriage and Michael allegedly tried to control her behavior.  He was fired from six jobs in two years, some of which he held for only two weeks.  They often lived on her income, which Michael allegedly often spent on himself.  He monitored her odometer and isolated her from her family.  On the day of her collapse, they were reported to have had a fight.

            Michael Schiavo insists that Terri stated early in their marriage that she never would want to be kept on life support.  The truth is that she is not on life support; she breathes on her own.   Why is this man in such a hurry to put her away?  One of the strangest, and perhaps, most insightful desires of Michael is to have his wife cremated immediately upon her death.  He excuse is that she wouldn’t want a standard burial because she “doesn’t like bugs.”

            Perhaps there is another reason – that Michael has something to hide, like the cause of her numerous injuries.  Perhaps an autopsy would reveal too much incriminating evidence.

            Do you see what’s going on here?  A man who 17 months ago gave a sweet plea for prayer may actually be the cause of the difficulty!  Perhaps Terri may have been living a normal life today as a wife and mother if she had not married Michael.  If what I have suggested is true, Michael gives us a demonstration in real life of the awful, pervasive, destructive nature of our sin-cancer.  There are people who literally show evidences of wanting to kill.  We may call them the “bad” sinners while at the same time we follow them in their root motivation of hate and self-centeredness.   It may be our brother or sister, or wife, or husband, or parents, or difficult neighbors.  The sin is the same, even though it is a different form. 

            So we have in our beautiful country a court that has ordered the cruel execution of Terri, starting this Friday.  What happens when the next guy wants to send his wife away because she has Alzheimers?  Or is on a ventilator?  Or costs too much money to maintain?   Does Terri’s life have value, just because she is created in the image of God?  Should we protect the lives of the weak and helpless?  Or should we let their lives be controlled by husbands like Michael?

            Did you notice in the news this week the story of  a Kansas woman, Sarah Scantlin who hasn’t spoken since being struck by a drunk driver 20 years ago?  A month ago she uttered her first words.  By legal definition, when she started to speak, her life was “valid.”  The day before, when she was in a coma, her life was not.  Fortunately she did not have a husband who wanted to starve her to death.

            What can we do?  1.  We can pray for Terri and for those who have some sort of influence and control over her date of death.  2.  You can call our Representative, Stenny Hoyer in the House which is set to consider legislation this week that would grant Terri the same right to due process as to criminals.  There are two bills, HR 1151 and S 539 that must be passed quickly.  The Capitol switchboard number is (202) 224-3121.

 

IV.  The Law brings our failure into clearer focus (19-20).

19 Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God. 20 Therefore by the deeds of the law no flesh will be justified in His sight, for by the law is the knowledge of sin.

 

            The Law was given to a certain group of people, the Jewish nation.  You and I (if you are a Gentile) were never given the law.  We are in that group of “lawless, uncircumcised,” Gentiles.  I don’t know much about you, and I don’t even know much about my own roots, but I don’t think there is any Abrahamic blood there.  However, even though only the Jews are under the Law, the Law still convicts us Gentiles.  In fact it convicts the entire world.  The purpose of any law is to bring guilty people to conviction.  The original purpose of the laws of the state of Florida were to protect the innocent and convict the guilty. 

            The Law has the ability to stop “every mouth” which is in the process of defending itself.  The picture is of a courtroom where the trial suddenly stops with new, overwhelming evidence that points out the guilty one.  It’s like the Perry Mason ending.  Let’s say that all of us have assembled in the courtroom for the final day of the trial of Michael Schiavo.  We know that he is the guilty one.  And Perry Mason is there and brings in this witness called “The Law.”  The Law causes a shocking turn, because it points out the guilty one.  And it is YOU – and ME, as we sit on the back row of the courtroom.  We are guilty ones.  It is our mouths that are full of cursing and bitterness.  It is our hearts that hurry to shed blood.  And we sit there in shock that Perry’s witness would be able to find us on the back row.  And we notice that the TV camera is trained on us – two of them in fact.  And they are waiting for us to stand up in the glare of the lights and say, “yes, that’s me, I’m guilty.”  We could probably slide under the courtroom pews and hide – like we did the last time the Law caught us.  But which ever way we respond, the Law has done its job – to point us out to ourselves and others as the guilty one.

            The conclusion is that the works of the Law (the actions that it prescribes) will justify no one.  No person has ever made himself/herself righteous by what he or she can accomplish.  It’s impossible.  It’s inconceivable.  The works prescribed by the Law blow everyone away, like feathers in a hurricane.  The Law doesn’t come to help people fix themselves, as a guide to lead them to heaven; the Law comes as the witness that points them out in court, as the guilty one – so that they will turn to Jesus Christ for forgiveness.

 

CONCLUSION -- Let me make three applications

1.  You can only deal with your sin-cancer with outside help – God’s help. 

There is no “do-it-yourself” cancer surgery, either physically or spiritually.  Our only hope is for God’s intervention to deal with our beast.  Luke 18:9-14 holds the key.  There are two types of sinners, the forgiven and the unforgiven.  What is the difference?  One admitted his sin, the other one covered it.  One said, “I thank you God that I am not like other men.”  He went home still a condemned sinner.  The other said, “God be merciful to me the sinner.”  He went home forgiven.  Have you admitted your sin to God?  Have you ever admitted that all of these descriptions of you are accurate and that your condition is hopeless?  Have you ever pleaded with Jesus Christ to invade your life, forgive your sins and take control?  That’s the doorway to forgiveness.  Paul the apostle said, "Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief."  I would encourage you to join him in his testimony.

 

2.  Christians can only deal with this horrible power with God’s help.