Romans 3:1-9 (KJV) What advantage then hath the Jew? or what profit is there of circumcision? 2 Much every way: chiefly, because that unto them were committed the oracles of God. 3 For what if some did not believe? shall their unbelief make the faith of God without effect? 4 God forbid: yea, let God be true, but every man a liar; as it is written, That thou mightest be justified in thy sayings, and mightest overcome when thou art judged. 5 But if our unrighteousness commend the righteousness of God, what shall we say? Is God unrighteous who taketh vengeance? (I speak as a man) 6 God forbid: for then how shall God judge the world? 7 For if the truth of God hath more abounded through my lie unto his glory; why yet am I also judged as a sinner? 8 And not rather, (as we be slanderously reported, and as some affirm that we say,) Let us do evil, that good may come? whose damnation is just. 9 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…

In 2019 we were told that the greatest threat to humanity was attacking the world. Called the “Coronavirus Disease” or “Covid-19”, nearly every nation in the world ground to a halt. Governments shut down businesses, gymnasiums, beaches, restaurants, and Churches. From its initial outbreak in late 2019 to April 13, 2024 there were 7,010,681 deaths worldwide from Covid. So is Covid the most dangerous thing in the world? It is dangerous, but the U.S. Centers for Disease Control tells us that mosquitoes are the world’s deadliest creature. It causes 700,000 deaths worldwide each year. Which is more deadly – Covid, or mosquitoes?

There’s something more deadly than Covid-19, mosquitoes, rattlesnakes, or spiders. The most deadly thing in the world is what God calls “Sin”.

Sin is more deadly than cancer. If you go to your doctor and he diagnoses you with cancer, there are options that you will be given to combat that cancer. Very few people tell their doctor to “go fly a kite” when he gives them the diagnosis. The cancer patient takes the doctor seriously, and heeds the doctor. But when God tells us that sin is deadly, we ignore both the Word of God and the Pastor who tells us about it.

Sin spreads like a cancer. When not addressed and ignored, sin leads us into deeper sins. Ted Bundy before he was a mass murderer worked for the Seattle Suicide Center, saving lives. Before Adolf Hitler engineered a World War and murdered millions of people in concentration camps he was an animal lover, going so far as to be a vegetarian because he could not stand to see animals killed. He sponsored and passed the Animal Protection Act (1933) which criminalized the mistreatment of animals throughout Germany, and instituted anti-hunting laws. The mobster Al Capone, A.K.A. “Scarface” funded a soup kitchen in Chicago to insure people weren’t starving. The criminal Pablo Escobar built hospitals and housing, and was elected to Columbia’s Congress in 1982. One of God’s own men, the Shepherd King David allowed sin to enter his life. David loved God with all his heart, but had an adulterous relationship with Bathsheba, the wife of Uriah. He then sought to cover up that relationship with murder.

Sin is insidious. It starts small, and spreads. Though many have never been infected with Coronavirus, all have been touched by sin. Sin kills. “The wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23).

Sin Cannot Be Fixed By What You Do

If confronted with cancer, we realize we cannot “fix” it unless we submit to medical science. Even then, cancer may not be fixed or stayed – but we will submit to chemotherapy or radiation treatments if our doctor advises it.

And yet, we try to fix SIN.

Romans 3:1-2 (KJV) What advantage then hath the Jew? or what profit is there of circumcision? 2 Much every way: chiefly, because that unto them were committed the oracles of God.

When it comes to sin, “What advantage does the Jew have”? Do Jews get a pass on sin? No, they don’t. But we are told

Word Study: “unto them were committed the oracles of God”. What does that mean? It means that God introduced Himself to humanity through the Jewish Nation. The word translated “ORACLES” is the Greek logion (pro. log’-ee-on) which means “The UTTERANCES or the WORD of GOD”. The Bible itself is 66 books written by 40 human authors. The Scripture tells us that the authors or “PROPHETS”:

2 Peter 1:21 (ESV) … no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.

“We have a SURE WORD FROM GOD” (2 Peter 1:19, AP). God moved in 40 human authors. If you look at the Bible,

The Book of Job (which predates Jacob or Israel)
The Book of Nahum (a Prophet from Elkosh in Iraq)
The Gospel of Luke (a Gentile Physician)
The Book of Acts (written by Luke)
The Book of 2 Timothy (also written by Luke)

These 5 books were written by Gentiles. The three New Testament Books written by Luke were words dictated to him by the Apostles, Jesus’ hand-picked Prophets. So in reality 35 of 40 books of our Bible were written by Jewish Prophets, and 3 books were dictated by Jewish Apostles. God gave us the Bible through the Jews, through the nation Israel.

So we come back to the question, “What advantage then hath the Jew?”. Why did God choose the Jewish nation? Was it because they are better than all the other nations? Absolutely not. God told Israel:

Deuteronomy 7:7-9 (ESV) It was not because you were more in number than any other people that the Lord set his love on you and chose you, for you were the fewest of all peoples, 8 but it is because the Lord loves you and is keeping the oath that he swore to your fathers, that the Lord has brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt. 9 Know therefore that the Lord your God is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments, to a thousand generations …

God told Israel “I chose Israel because I AM FAITHFUL and YOU ARE WEAK”. Israel was not a powerful nation when God founded it. Israel came out of a man called Abraham, a man unable to have children. God told Abraham in effect:

“You are a weak and impotent man. If you will follow Me and go where I say, if you will obey and honor Me, I will make from you a mighty nation – and bless all the nations of the world through you.”

Abraham heard what God said, and began to follow God. Was he perfect in following? Absolutely not! But the Bible says:

Romans 4:3 (ESV) “Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness.”

Galatians 3:6 (ESV) Abraham “believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness”

Abram (his name before God changed it) was living life his own way, doing his own thing, following his own gods. But then God called him to repentance, and made His case. Abram heard what God said, repented, and began to follow God no matter what God told him to do. God caused a new heart to be in Abram. He was “born again of God’s Spirit”. When a child is born, what is the first thing you do? You name it. God named Abram as Abraham. He was not as he was – he is now a child of God. The Bible says:

James 2:23 (ESV) … “Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness”—and he was called a friend of God.

When God wrote the Scriptures, He started by calling Moses, a Jew adopted into the household of the Egyptian Pharaoh. Israel at this point in history was slaves to Egypt, and slaves to the Egyptian gods and goddesses. God raised up Moses, and through Moses wrote the Pentateuch, the Books of the Law. As Moses wrote these books under God’s direction, one theme was recurrent.

Mankind – males and females – are all born sinners.
The wages of sin is separation from God and death.
Though God allowed animal sacrifices, we cannot fix our sins.
Animal sacrifices were REPEATEDLY committed.
The Law diagnosed sin, but gave no remedy.
Mankind – males and females – are all born sinners.

God wrote His Word, our Bible, through broken and undone people who REPENTED and BELIEVED in Him.

Romans 3:2 (KJV) … what profit is there of circumcision?

It was to Abraham and the future Israel that God established the act of “circumcision”. In circumcision, the male foreskin is removed, a very painful situation. God established that every male child would be circumcised on the 8^th day following birth. Circumcision was a command unique to Israel.

But physical circumcision had NOTHING to do with salvation. It was an external act of obedience from a believer. God told the Israelite that:

Genesis 17:14 (NIV) Any uncircumcised male, who has not been circumcised in the flesh, will be cut off from his people; he has broken my covenant.

God did not say that the uncircumcised would be cast into hell, or lose eternal life. God said that the uncircumcised would be cut off from Israel. If circumcision had to do with salvation, then both males and females would be circumcised. But females were NOT circumcised. Circumcision was a man-specific action.

• First of all, it was crippling to an adult male. When circumcised you wouldn’t be able to fight or defend your homes until you healed.
• Second, circumcision was the willing shedding of blood of a man. You had to choose to be circumcised, or be cut off from Israel. But you had a choice.
• Third, circumcision as the willing shedding of man’s blood looked forward to the Cross of Christ. As sin came by Man (Adam), sin would have to be paid for by Perfect Man (the Lord Jesus Christ). My shedding of blood does nothing for me. But through circumcision God repeatedly reminded Israel that sin is only covered by the Blood of the Innocent.

Romans 5:12, 15 (ESV) … sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned … 15 many died through one man’s trespass, much more have the grace of God and the free gift by the grace of that one man Jesus Christ abounded for many.

God’s promise and covenant with Israel was that the Messiah, the One Who COULD fix sin, would come through that nation. Thus God chose the weakest, most impotent and enslaved nation as His own. He built that nation from nothing, and demanded that all who were His Chosen REPENT and BELIEVE in Him.

Israel Was Chosen As God’s Tool To Bring Messiah Into The World – Though Israel Often Failed To Believe

Romans 3:3-5 For what if some did not believe? shall their unbelief make the faith of God without effect? 4 God forbid: yea, let God be true, but every man a liar; as it is written, That thou mightest be justified in thy sayings, and mightest overcome when thou art judged. 5 But if our unrighteousness commend the righteousness of God, what shall we say? Is God unrighteous who taketh vengeance? (I speak as a man)

Throughout the history of Israel there were many Israelites that were circumcised, but did not believe in God. God planned to bring the Messiah, Jesus Christ our Lord, to this earth through Israel. The Bible says that when Jesus came,

John 1:11 (NKJV) {Jesus} came to His own, and His own did not receive Him.

God sent His Son to this earth to be born of a virgin, to be born of the Household of King David, to be born a Jew in Bethlehem – and yet the Jews largely rejected Him.

They would not believe on Him. The Pharisees insinuated that Jesus was born of sin (John 8:41). They openly declared to Jesus:

John 8:48 … “Do we not say rightly that You are a Samaritan and have a demon?”

The “Samaritans” were hated of the Jews because they were not pure Jew. Claiming Jesus to be first of all a “Samaritan” and second of all “demon possessed”, they are saying Jesus was NOT of Israel, and thus could NOT be the Messiah.

Did Israel’s disbelief and faithlessness undo the faithfulness of God? Absolutely not!

God made promises to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, and David. The Bible tells us that:

2 Timothy 2:13 (NKJV) If we are faithless, He remains faithful; He cannot deny Himself.

God was going to send the Messiah – the Fixer of our sins – through a broken people called Israel. God could not deny Himself – would not break His Plan.

Though Israel repeatedly through her history rejected God, and fell prey to nations like Egypt, Babylon, Assyria, Medo-Persia, Rome, and more recently Germany … our God is still faithful. The faithlessness of Israel did not change the plan of God, but

Galatians 4:4-5 (NKJV) But when the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, 5 to redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption as sons.

The Jew that leaves this life without faith in Jesus are nonetheless CONDEMNED TO ETERNAL DAMNATION. The Jew does not get a free pass to Heaven because Israel is “Chosen”. If the Jew does not respond to the Fixer of Sin, Jesus Christ our Lord, their fate is just as bleak and terrible as is the fate of Adolf Hitler, Ted Bundy, Al Capone, or Pablo Escobar. The Bible says:

John 3:18-21 “He who believes in {Jesus} is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. 19 And this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. 20 For everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed. 21 But he who does the truth comes to the light, that his deeds may be clearly seen, that they have been done in God.”

God sent the Messiah through Israel. Jesus came “for the Jew FIRST, and ALSO for the GENTILE” (Romans 1:16; 2:10). The Jew who rejects Christ is NOT God’s Chosen People, for they have hardened their hearts to the Fixer of Sin, the Great Physician Jesus Christ. The Evangelist Billy Graham wrote:

“God prescribes the remedy for the ills of the human race. That remedy is personal faith and commitment to Christ. This happens when we humble ourselves in repentance of sin against Him and call out to Jesus for His forgiveness. He grants salvation to all those who will turn to Him and receive Him as Lord and Savior, but multitudes reject the greatest remedy offered to mankind.

When we’re sick, we see a doctor who prescribes medication. If we decide to ignore the advice and refuse the prescription, the symptoms can grow worse. Should we hold the doctor responsible? No, because we’ve refused the remedy.

The disease of sin that has infected the entire world has a remedy—God’s salvation—but it must be received. If we refuse it, we suffer the consequence; we cannot blame God.

People magazine once carried the story of Lem Banker who said, “Never bet what you want to win, only what you can afford to lose.” No one can afford to lose their eternal soul. The Man we often refer to as the Great Physician is based on Jesus’ words: “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance” (Mark 2:17). The remedy is clear: receive Jesus today.”

Sin Is A Horrible Disease That Jesus Defeats

Romans 3:7-8 (KJV) For if the truth of God hath more abounded through my lie unto his glory; why yet am I also judged as a sinner? 8 And not rather, (as we be slanderously reported, and as some affirm that we say,) Let us do evil, that good may come? whose damnation is just.

Some today try to change the nature of sin, to normalize it. This has been a tactic of Satan and the world from the beginning. The devil first – through the religious Pharisees, the Jews – tried to make Jesus out as a con-man, a liar, not of Israel. They said that Jesus was demon possessed, an illegitimate Child, a Samaritan. And yet, people began to hear the Gospel, repent, and be saved. So how does the devil and the world attack the Gospel once received. They say “The Gospel frees you so that you can “do evil, that good may come”. Once saved, you can sin with impunity, without regard to the consequences. After all, Jesus paid for those sins on the Cross. We are told in:

Jude 4 (NKJV) For certain men have crept in {into the local Churches} unnoticed, who long ago were marked out for this condemnation, UNGODLY MEN, who turn the grace of our God into lewdness and deny the only Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ.

The devil has had his agents in the Church from the beginning. These unsaved in heart whitewashed mausoleums normalize sexual sins of all types, saying “You can be a Christian and do these things”. Yes, Christians do often fall into evil sins. But the Christian confronted by the Word of God – like King David when the Prophet Nathan exposed his adultery and murder –

The Christian will REPENT of sin and RETURN to following Jesus. The Christian knows that God does not save us IN our sins, but FROM our sins.

David repented with bitter weeping once exposed, and returned to God. And yet, there are consequences to sin. Sin is the most horrible thing in the world.

Romans 3:9 … we have before proved both Jews and Gentiles, that they are all UNDER sin

Sin is horrible. It cripples us. It robs us. It is the Thief that Jesus spoke of in:

John 10:10 The THIEF does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.

Preach Verbatim: The “THIEF” is sin. Sin robs us of God’s best for us. Sin robbed Adam of Paradise, and robbed Eve of peace in childbearing. Sin robbed Abel of his life, and made Cain a wandering marked man. Sin robbed the world of life in a Great Flood, killing men, women, children, and babies. Sin caused God to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah by fire. Sin causes a husband to step out on his wife, or the wife to fall to another man. Sin causes children to be robbed of their childhoods, molested by parents, or raised without parents. Sin takes a sane person and addicts them to alcohol or drugs. Sin robs society of children and their children and their children, perhaps taking the life of the one that would cure cancer, heart disease, stroke, or some other horrid malady. Sin robs Churches of peace, as Shepherds who should know better toy with the sheep. Sin causes murders, rapes, heartache, and misery. Sin is laughed at on television, promoted on “The View”, and endorsed by political candidates as “normal”. Sin is the most horrible thing in the world …..

which is why God sent His Son Jesus through Israel.

There is the Jesus that none could find sin in. The Faultless Son of God. Beaten, bruised, so horribly wounded on by sinful man. Nailed to a Tree. Adam’s sin cursed us all. Adam’s sin cursed our world. Adam’s sin cursed the ground itself (Genesis 3:17).

But because God is faithful, He sent Jesus to take the curse of sin on Himself. “Cursed is He Who hangs on a Tree” (Galatians 3:13).

Jesus became a curse for us. Sin is the most horrible thing in the world, but what Jesus did for us in the greatest thing in the world. “By His stripes WE ARE HEALED” (Isaiah 53:5; 1 Peter 2:24).

We are “fixed” when we come to Jesus Christ, repenting, believing. When we give our lives to Him Who gave His life for us, God “fixes” us. He changes our mind about sin. We know the right from the wrong, and when we do the wrong we REPENT and do so AT THE FOOT OF THE CROSS. It is “the Blood of Jesus Christ” that brings us into the family of God (Ephesians 2:13). It is the “Blood of Jesus Christ God’s Son that cleanses us from all sin” (1 John 1:7). It is the Blood willingly shed that fixes us, and removes us from the insanity of sin.

Do you know Him? Have you believed that He died for your sins, and rose from the Grave. Have you heard Him call you to salvation? Have you responded? Have you said, “Yes Lord, I will follow You”. Oh I pray you have done so this very day. Do not delay. The only escape from the worst thing in the world – sin – is reliant faith on Jesus. Amen.