Good evening, and welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the book of Romans.  Tonight is study #19 of Romans 3,  and we will read Romans 3:11-18:

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 sepulchre; with their tongues they have used deceit; 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 the way of peace have they not known: There is no fear of God before their eyes.

I will stop reading there.  In our last study, we were talking about the fact that “there is none that understandeth,” and that is a statement that applies to every human being that ever lived, and it applies to those that are in their sins.  That is, in our sinful fallen condition, no one understands God. 

We talked a little bit about how we might have some sympathy toward the idea of “not understanding” because there are many things we do not understand about many things in the world.  Yet God is focused on the relationship between Him and His creatures, the ones that were made in the image and likeness of God.  It was sin (man’s disobedience and rebellion against the commandment of God) that produced the condition that man finds himself in, which is to be dead in his soul.  And when he died in his soul, he was cut off from God because God is a Spirit, and the soul of man is a spirit.  When man had life in his soul, there was a connection between the creature and his Creator.  There was a relationship and communication, and understanding could occur within the creature (man) concerning the knowledge of the Creator.  They were on the same “wave length,” so to speak.  But once Adam sinned (and he was the figurehead for the whole human race), God slew him.  God had warned Adam, “But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.”  And he did die, as it says in Ezekiel 18:4:

… the soul that sinneth, it shall die.

Adam died in his soul existence.  He did not die bodily at that point, and he continued to live for hundreds of years.  But in his soul, in that very day he died, and that made him “dead” in the spiritual realm, which is a huge problem because God is a Spirit, and the kingdom of God is a spiritual kingdom.  How can one who is dead in spirit communicate with one who is Spirit?  How can the one who has died in his soul see, hear, or understand God, the Creator, who has spiritual existence and exists in the spiritual realm of things? 

You know, it is often said by people in this world who disbelieve, “There is no God.”  Remember what we read in Psalm 14 and Psalm 53, and both of these Psalms began the same way.  I will read Psalm 14:1:

The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God. They are corrupt, they have done abominable works, there is none that doeth good.

That is what leads to none doing good, and none understanding, and none being righteous.  The fool has said this in his heart because his heart is dead in sins and trespasses.  The “heart” is a synonym for the “soul,” and the soul is dead, and therefore he foolishly thinks there is no God because God is Spirit.  And the spirit essence of man (his soul) is dead, and, of course, a dead thing cannot know or understand.

We do not go to a cemetery and speak to those in the grave, and expect them to respond or to understand what we are saying.   Some people do have that idea as they speak to dead loved ones, but there is no hearing, and there are really no responses because they are dead.  That is the nature of being dead.  When someone is dead, they can no longer see.  They can no longer hear.  They can no longer act.  They are unresponsive, and they do not understand what you are saying to them for the very reason that they are dead.

And this is the case with mankind in his soul.  So God speaks through the Bible, and the Bible tells us in Psalm 19 that it is as though the heavens are declaring the glory of God.  It says in Psalm 19:1-3:

The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork. Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night sheweth knowledge. There is no speech nor language, where their voice is not heard.

The people of the earth see the sun, moon, and stars.  They look around and see the beauty of the earth and the whole creation, and it is declaring (speaking) the glory of God.  Yet, in his soul, the sinner has no real understanding of the One who has created it all because he is dead in heart.  He is saying, “There is no God.”  That is how badly he misunderstands.  He is incapable of understanding God.  So there are atheists, and more of them as we reached the time of the end.  They are more zealous in their atheism, and they would proudly declare that they do not believe in God.  They blame the ills of mankind (all of man’s sins and wrong doings), on God.  “Get rid of God,” they say, “and all will be well and wonderful.” 

That is a ridiculous idea.  The world has done its best to get rid of God, and the more they try to do so, the worse things get.  But there are masses of unbelieving people in the world who say, “There is no God.”  They do not recognize any God, and they will say to you, “Prove it to me.  Prove God exists.  You have to present evidence.  If you want to say there is a God, you have to prove He is real.”  That is the big testing program they present to those who say they believe in the God of the Bible.  “Show me.  Prove He is real.”  Of course God is not provable to them.   It is a waste of our time. 

When talking to atheists or discussing it on social media, I never try to prove the existence of God to them, but I always point out that they cannot understand or know God because they are “dead” in their souls, and God is a spirit being.  They cannot know or comprehend a spiritual being who is in the spiritual realm of existence when they are dead in spirit.  It is not possible.  It would be the height of foolishness to waste time trying to prove God to someone who is dead. 

Again, it would be like going to a cemetery and trying to prove something to dead bones in a casket.  What will they learn?  What will they be able to understand if you go and speak to the sepulchre of the dead individual, whether he has been dead for a day, or for a hundred years?  You could speak for hours, weeks, or as long as you want, and at the end of your speaking, what would that individual understand of what you have said?  Nothing.  Why will he not understand?  It is because he is dead.  The dead cannot understand.  That is the point God is making: “There is none that understandeth.”  Why?  It is because all have sinned, and in sinning, all have become spiritually dead.

God is Spirit, and He has moved prophets of old to write down and record the Scriptures, and we are tremendously blessed to have Bibles in our possession.  But the Bible is a spiritual book, which is why God says in Romans 7:14:

For we know that the law is spiritual: but I am carnal, sold under sin.

The Law is the whole Bible.  The Bible is a Law book., and the Law is spiritual.  Understanding this, we can see why it says 1Corinthians 2:12-13:

Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God. Which things also we speak, not in the words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing spiritual things with spiritual.

That is, we compare Law with Law, as it says in Isaiah: “precept upon precept.”  We compare this Bible verse (spiritual Law) with that Bible verse (spiritual Law), and the Holy Ghost teaches.  The word “Ghost” is a word that should be translated “Spirit,” so the Holy Spirit teaches spiritual truth through the spiritual Word of God.  It is all a spiritual process that imparts spiritual understanding to the hearts and minds of those that have been born again in our souls.  We have had our souls restored to life, as it says in Psalm 23:3: “He restoreth my soul…”  We are no longer dead in soul because God has resurrected it, and He has brought the once-dead soul to life, and now we have been returned, as it were, to a condition similar to Adam before the fall when he still had communion with God.  Once again the redeemed sinner has spiritual life, and he can come to the spiritual book of God, the Bible, and the Holy Spirit can teach him.  The Spirit tells him to compare spiritual with spiritual, and he will understand it.  That is, the elect of God will understand it. 

But tell that to the people of in the churches that are not truly born again, as it goes on to say in 1Corinthians 2:14:

But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.

To know something is to understand it.  I often refer to “natural-minded” individuals, and I do that intentionally because that is what the Bible does.  The Bible separates mankind into two types of people: the born again, and those that are not born again; the saved, and the unsaved; the spiritual-minded, and the natural-minded; the wise, and the foolish.  One group, which is the few God has chosen, has capability to understand God and the Word of God.  They can have connection with the living God, who is Spirit.  They can see Him with eyes of understanding.  They hear Him with ears of understanding.  They hear His voice.  They come to know truth.  They understand that it is spiritual with spiritual: “Of course God has His own methodology, and this is how He teaches us.  I just have to look at this word and see how it is used elsewhere – here a little, there a little.”  You see, the people of God “get it,” and they understand the process.

But then there are the natural-minded individuals like the ones in the churches, and they look at us strangely.  “What are you talking about?  You are jumping all over the place (in the Bible).  Context matters, you know.”  They cannot help themselves as they revert to their manmade (natural) hermeneutic of the “plain, historical, literal, grammatical” method of Bible interpretation.  You see, that method is outside the spiritual realm – it does not require the Spirit of God to teach them, nor does it require their own spirits to have been restored to life.  They can comprehend it because it is a natural method devised by natural men to teach a spiritual book, so they follow it, and they do learn biblical history, and they learn some important moral teachings of the Bible.  They learn some ways to look at the Bible.  “Oh, the Bible has historic sections.  It has hyperbolic areas, like the book of Revelation.  It has poetry.”  Yes, they are learning various things, and even somewhat interesting things that would interest a true child of God, but they never learn much because they do not go too deep.  It is always superficial surface learning of the Scriptures.  They learn as much as that as they can, but God says in Romans 3:11: “There is none that understandeth.” 

And some may spend a lifetime in Bible study; they may go to a seminary; they may have a master’s degree in divinity; and some even have doctorates in theology.  They spent decades and decades in study, and they have truly put forth great time and effort in learning the Bible and understanding the things of God.  But at the end of it, Romans 3:11 still applies to them.  They have not yet begun to understand the littlest thing of this spiritual book.  They do not understand God or His Word because God is Spirit, and His Word is spiritual, and they themselves are not.