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The Venom Within Us All

Wisdom for the Heart / Dr. Stephen Davey
The Cross Radio
January 5, 2021 12:00 am

The Venom Within Us All

Wisdom for the Heart / Dr. Stephen Davey

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January 5, 2021 12:00 am

As a child, did your parents ever wash your mouth out with soap when you talked back to an adult or said a bad word? I’m sure we all got that at least once or twice! Well in today’s study of Romans chapter 3, the Apostle Paul will reveal to us that our mouths are dirty and in need of a good washing. Soap, however, won’t do the trick. So grab your Bible and join Stephen in this sermon as he gives us the only thing that will: Scripture.

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Inside each one of us is the capacity to deceive others, we can deceive with malice.

We can deceive out of fear.

We can deceive for financial gain. We can deceive by virtue of silence we can deceive by boasting we can deceive by exaggeration, we can deceive through insincere promises we can deceive with pious language we can deceive by withholding the full truth we can deceive for personal advancement. We can deceive through innuendo and we can be saved by means of flattery. These are only a few that I thought of back to an adult set a bad word.

I'm sure we all have stories to tell of how our mouths got us into trouble. Well today's message from Romans chapter 3 Stephen Davey will remind us that our mouths are dirty and in need of a good washing soap, however, won't do the trick. So grab your Bible enjoying Stephen in this sermon as he gives us the only thing that will scripture this message is entitled the venom within us all here. Stephen, I find it personally. No surprise, and, for the Bible student. It won't be a defined in the middle of the apostle Paul's description of human depravity. A description of the human tongue. The destructive power of words© pick up our study where we left off with Romans chapter 3 verse 13, their throat, that is the throat of depraved man is an open grave, with their tongues they keep deceiving, the poison of asps or vipers is under their lips whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness. Now, thus far in this inspired sketch of human sinfulness. The Holy Spirit has revealed through Paul in verses 10 through 12 that we have looked at who we are who we are. He says in that text, there is none righteous, not even one, there is none who understands, there is none who seeks for God.

All have turned aside, together they have become like spoiled milk. Remember in our study. That's a revelation of who we are apart from God's redemptive work through the Savior now here in the second section for our study today we are shown what we say so.

In verses 10 to 12.

We have the revelation of mankind's evil condition. In verses 13 to 14. We have the revelation of mankind's evil communication and Paul will hear now deliver for more indictments on the human heart. He will provide, as it were, the diagnosis of depravity and it is not a very pretty sight. If you have been with us over these weeks you have discovered who we are in the side of a holy God and have I'm sure reveled in the redemption that washed you and made you clean. I have never gone to see a doctor for a checkup. In all my life without having them do the same thing. I guess in medical school, they learned that they begin the examination by reaching into that cabinet or into that drawer and pulling out one of those wooden popsicle sticks and putting it in your mouth until you gag and then say say, which makes you gag more right. The truth is a good physician knows that the mouth is a key window into the physical condition of the body while the divine physician is no less thorough. He will now begin a closer inspection into the depravity of the human condition and he does it by first of all, opening the mouth, as it were of mankind. He will revealed by virtue of this inspection of the mouth the text. You'll notice the throat… The tongue. He will continue in the latter part of this by looking at the feet and the eyes but here he opens, as it were, the mouth he looks into the throat and at the tongue of mankind, and he says several things that will just say are diagnostic observations. The first is this the throat exposes hidden depravity. Look again at Paul's statement. Their throat is an open grave. What is he mean their throat is an open grave filet T. Robertson enough, a Greek scholar of a few generations ago translated the tens of this more literally, which helps to clarify what Paul meant as he translated it this way their throat is an open grave and open grave. A grave that has just been opened. In other words, is not referring to someone who's been buried in an open tomb someone is been put into a coffin without a lid. Paul is referring to a grave that has just been opened and the smell of death and the horror of the site of decaying flesh is exposed to all and we all instinctively would turn away. We know from biblical illustrations as well as Roman history that during these days coffins were not even used exactly ordinary grave of a common person would be alongside a roadway marked perhaps by a tree. In fact, the majority of people couldn't even afford the simplest of grave markers so burial involved simply placing the corpse in a shallow hole covering over the body. When earth followed by a pile of stones to keep the animals from getting to the body for those who are wealthy they could purchase land where a chamber tomb could be built or maybe even carved out of a rocky hillside with shelves or benches placed in and around inside or maybe even carved out of the sides of the tomb were deceased family members would be placed. It was in this kind of family tomb where Jesus Christ was temporarily placed, but the majority of people were buried in shallow holes and flooding Laura a sudden rainstorm or the uprooting of a nearby tree, or any other number of things could open a grave and reveal the decaying body, the grave has just been opened, whether in a cave or alongside Road would cause people to suck in their breath and in turn away will. Here's here's Paul's point. He saying just as the opening of a grave reveals the death that is within its and all of its decay. So the opening of the human throat reveals the hidden death and corruption and decay of the human heart.

Interesting that the word Paul uses for throat is the Greek word low rooms which gives us our English word larynx. The larynx or the throat is simply the doorway. In his analogy to the corruption within, and the words that come out of that doorway.

The smell of death, that is revealed that points to the fact that inside is decay and wickedness and corruption. It resides within the human heart Jesus Christ that it this way for the mouth speaks out of that which fills the heart. Matthew 1234. Solomon wrote the mouth of the wicked gushes evil. Proverbs 1528. In other words, we could say it this way, the mouth inevitably spills out the secrets of the sinful heart give a person enough time to loosen him up and often you'll see revealed the interior corruption, decay of the human condition. Gary Graff is a pastor in Lancaster, Minnesota. He wrote about a man he knew that when shopping. One day at the local mall. How when he finished shopping and returned to his car. He couldn't help but notice a foul odor and he identified it eventually is coming from his car and he looked inside and around it and couldn't discover anything until finally he raised the hood of his car and discovered a rather mutilated cat that had been caught in the fan belt for those of you love cats is going to be a disturbing story for the rest of this is just one less cat in the world but I wasn't a nice thing to say here I am preaching on the tone will anyway.

This unfortunate category. I'll confess it at the end like you. Okay.

All right. This I Had found shelter from the cold by getting up into the engine block, and that when the man got in and started his car course. Well, you know, get the idea. So there he stood in in front of his car that afternoon in the mall parking lot looking at this mangled cat. He decided to empty the contents of one of those shopping bags into another bag and then proceeded to scrape and pull and push the remains of that cat into his empty bag. Finally he got all of the grisly remains inside the bag and he slammed the hood down and he walked back toward the mall to wash his hands, just as he reached the entrance. He he happened to turn backward and he saw something unusual. He had tied a knot in the top of that department store bag, and he had left it on top of the hood of his car and he saw a middle-aged woman standing next to his car, looking suspiciously back and forth and then she grabbed the bag and walked quickly towards the mall past him and in and through the door.

He thought this is too good. He decided to follow her and and see what would happen. Pastor Graff wrote these words, she went into a restaurant in the mall and was seated in a private booth.

Once seated, she proceeded to untie the knot and surveyed her stolen prize. As soon as she opened the bag and saw the dead cat inside. She screamed and then fainted dead away course, the management was alarmed that a customer to fainted in the restaurant so they called the paramedics. In no time. The woman was strapped to a cart and taken off to the ambulance. The man just couldn't resist. He had taken the bag from the booth and just as they were putting her inside.

He ran over and said hey lady, don't forget your bag. They laid the bag on top of her will remember thing I said to David Jerome like that story wanted this woman thought she'd gotten away with prize the Jeep. Instead, you got a bag bone you take the nicest looking person wearing the nicest outfit with a nice smile, nice connections, nice background of the man or the woman that anybody has it together. They have it together. Just open their mouth lift the hood as it were, open the bag and you will discover what God has told us he has discovered and that is corruption and decay, and sin and death carefully hidden away. One writer put it this way is spiritually dead.

Heart can generate only spiritually dead words, the natural or unbelieving man.

However, keeps his throat open and in so doing, continually testifies to his death by the foulness and the self-centeredness and the pride of his word. The throat reveals hidden depravity. Paul goes on to give us the second diagnostic observation. He writes in the middle part of verse 13 with their tongue. They keep deceiving, so the throat not only exposes hidden depravity.

But secondly, the tongue produces great deception.

The word to deceive, here's his word that refers to lowering into a trap to word that the Greeks would use for fishermen who would sometimes be a singular line and hooking and get in the water and when the fish grabbed onto that foodie thought he was going to get a meal but he instead became one of the characteristics of the human heart is the ability to deceive, to lure others. In effect, into believing something about you that is not true to believe something that is not true in the world to be true. The apostle Paul. By the way here's quoting from Psalm chapter 5. If we had time we could expound that Psalm is David says other things about the human heart.

He also says this, there is in this Psalm there is nothing reliable in what man said their inward part is destruction itself. The prophet Jeremiah said that man is able to quote bend his tongue like a bow. Interesting bend his tongue like a blow lies and not truth prevail in the land, for they proceed from evil to evil, and they do not know me, declares the Lord.

Let everyone be on guard against his neighbor, and do not trust any brother because every brother deals craftily in every neighbor goes about as a slanderer and everyone deceives his neighbor and does not speak the truth, they have taught their tongue to speak lies Jeremiah 9 versus 3 to 5. Has it ever occurred to you that there are literally hundreds of thousands of laws crafted to protect us from one another. There are thousands of laws that attempt to get people to simply keep 10 Commandments and because we don't keep those 10 thou shalt not lie.

Thou shalt not bear false witness against another, thy neighbor, because we don't we have crafted over the centuries law upon law to close the loophole because we had our hearts are dishonest by nature deceptive. Now, by the way, that doesn't mean that a person can tell the truth right doesn't mean that an unbeliever can be honest Paul remember now as we study this this paragraph. In fact, this early part of this chapter Paul is not speaking so much of singular acts he speaking of the nature of man, the depravity of man, the wretched sinfulness of man and he is saying then that deception is a continual habitual part of man's character and makeup.

That's why, as we have said in the past. You do not have to teach a child how to live your be dishonest, be deceptive. The sinful nature hasn't mastered by about the age of five and then parades itself across the stage of human experience, and adjust it just changes costumes and adapts to the differing scenes throughout life learned that young we can deceive with malice. We can deceive out of fear. We can deceive for financial gain. We can deceive by virtue of silence we can deceive by boasting we can deceive by exaggeration, we can deceive through insincere promises we can deceive with pious language we can deceive by withholding the full truth we can deceive for personal advancement. We can deceive through innuendo and we can deceive by means of flattery. These are only a few that I thought of this, how we deceive fluorides God has locked inside your throat and the divine diagnosis is in your mouth you got a tongue that just keeps on deceiving. Left alone. The third diagnostic observation is this the lips speak untold damage.

Paul writes descriptively and probably the harshest of things that he is said thus far in the last part of verse 13 the poison of vipers or asps. Perhaps referring her to an Egyptian cobra which would be well known in his world, is under their lips. The throat exposes hidden depravity, the tongue produces great deception in the lips speak untold damage. William Arnold points out that the fangs of a deadly serpent like ordinarily folded back in its upper jaw when it throws up its head to strike those hollow things drop down and when the serpent bites the fangs press a sack of deadly poison hidden at the base of its mouth, thus injecting the venom into the world that wound itself open by means of the fangs has inserted into it.

The venom, the apostle Paul, then, is basically saying that the human mouth has within it a sack of venom and the tongue dispenses it by means of its words like snake biting down with its fangs. We were born. Then, as it were, with moral poison sacs under the roof of our mouths and we naturally strike one author said one another with venomous word there is venom within us all. The apostle James wrote in his epistle for every species of beasts and birds of reptiles and creatures of the sea, is tamed or tame a bowl and has been tamed by the human race, but no one can tame the tongue is a restless evil, and it is full of deadly poison chapter 3 verses 7 to 8 literally is filled with death bringing poison death producing venom. We have the kind of power. The natural man destroys, deceives a couple years ago I was in Africa. It was Zimbabwe. We visited a reptile house and it's their version of the zoo, only smaller. The building we went to a courtyard in the inner circle and it was surrounded by glass cages, where they kept the snakes and in the middle of the courtyard was up about a waist high wall in a pond in there with one crocodile setting himself. When we arrived we noticed that our tour guide was missing an arm explained that he lost the other with that very same crocodile in that pond course. We kept her distance than whatever you visit a zoo in the states.

You go see the snakes to go to the cage and you tap on it and doing things the bang on it.

You look around and you make faces at it.

Do all sorts of things in what is a snake do absolutely what nothing is a waste of money.

You go to find animals in their meeting, so natural you can't find him there out there enjoying life and retaining the sale. Well, this one was different. These snakes were so newly caught so wild they would watch us, we got close to a cage that had a glass front to it they would just watch us with their tongues darting and if you took your hand and you went toward them they would immediately lunge the glass there mouths open. We could see the fangs.

I remember getting at one point to one particular cage where the tour guide great pride introduced there prize catch and was a 6 foot long black mom bought one of the most poisonous snakes on planet Earth in our guide said there is no serum for this venom in Africa is no need for if you're bitten, said we call it seven steps you have seven steps to fall over dead course.

We were making any faces or move in our hands. It always kind of backed up and he asked if we wanted to watch it feeding and we said okay and then on the back and open the little door and threw it in a large mouse mouse immediately could sense the danger that sort of went over to a piece of wood that was on the floor of this large Cajun snake course new food was there. Eventually identified its location, slithered forward, watched it for a moment, coiled and struck and pulled back in that mouse wobbled for one split second and fell over dead. I had seen enough and was ready to leave at that point but I thought what power in that venom. It's interesting to remember that the apostle Paul. On one occasion was bitten by a viper same word used here.

In fact, those there at that campfire on the island of Malta where he had been marooned watch to because they were expecting him to what fall over dead, God intervened. He didn't die. I think it's interesting that Paul infected Scripture in the New Testament uses the analogy of the serpent in a number of different ways and here. Guess what it's talking about us. We like talking about that old serpent, you know what you're talking about its description of the natural man apart from the controlling work of the Spirit of God.

And Paul says under the influence of the great physician.

There happens to be poison in our malls, our tongues are like things which dispenses the venom and it can and it will and it has destroyed like those four reporters from Denver. Simple words so also everyone in this room is filled. Perhaps the sting venom in their own lives and has dispensed it as well. That means that one of the most dangerous enemies in your life is nestled inside your mouth. Webster defined the tongue as that little movable muscular structure attached to the floor of the mouth sound simple, did you know that according to the Bible.

One of the greatest distinctives of the believer is how you flex that muscle and I want to develop that in more detail in our next discussion. As we sort of moved into verse 14.

I want us to take an honest look at what the Bible says the time of the believer should look like and act like and sound like how it should act. But in the meantime today as we wrap things up. Let me give you something to put into practice immediately. A number of years. I shared this with our body.

It's an acrostic that Alan Redpath had come up with who wants Pastor Moody Church in downtown Chicago is interesting.

I had a just a few weeks ago a woman come up to me and say that she remembered this acrostic and had been using it to help her as a guideline. It's the acrostic think THI in K.

T is a true H is it helpful. I is an inspirational in necessary K kind is a true helpful inspirational necessary kind of what you're about to say doesn't pass think test done on her to take a closer look at the but I want to say this distinctive mark of unbelief is the unbelievers mouth. Therefore, one of the distinctive marks of the believer should be the believers mouth.

What Paul is saying here in Romans chapter 3 verse 13. Thus, distinctive of a maturing believer is discovered in the seasoning of his words, that rolloff that little movable muscular structure attached to the floor, mouth. I hope this time in God's has provoked you to consider the words you say when speaking to others. This is wisdom for the heart with Stephen Devi Stevenson titled this lesson the venom within us all and it comes from his series from Romans three called the depravity of man, the deliverance of God. If you joined us late and missed the beginning of this message, you can go back and listen online. It's posted to our website and to our app so you'll find it@wisdomonline.org or on the wisdom international smart phone app last April. Our ministry launched a new resource called heart-to-heart magazine.

It's become a wonderful tool that God is using to help the wisdom family grow in the faith and knowledge of God. Each month we have some articles from Stephen where he explores a topic related to the Christian life Seth Devi writes a new devotional for each day and those are printed in heart-to-heart. This is a gift that we send to all of our wisdom partners. But if you don't receive it. Would like to send you the next three issues as our gift to you.

Sign up online or call us at 86 648 Bible.

That's 866-482-4253. Thanks for listening. Join us tomorrow for more wisdom for the heart