Imagine you are sitting on the paper in a doctor's office. The scans came back an hour ago, and he has already looked at them. He walks in smiling, pats you on the shoulder, and tells you to go home and enjoy your weekend. You feel ten feet tall walking out to the truck. What you do not know is that the scan showed a tumor, and he just did not have the heart to tell you.

Would you call that kindness? None of us would. It is cruel to hide a cancer from a patient who could find treatment. It is a horrible crime to hide from a criminal the sentence that is coming if he does not change his ways. And it is rebellion against God for a preacher to see where a man's path is headed and never warn him of the judgment waiting at the end of it.

That is why we cannot skip the hard diagnosis. J.C. Ryle put it this way:

"There are very few errors and false doctrines of which the beginning may not be traced up to unsound views about the corruption of human nature. Wrong views of the disease will always bring with them wrong views of the remedy. Wrong views of the corruption of human nature will always carry with them wrong views of the grand antidote and cure of that corruption."

Get the disease wrong and you will get the cure wrong every time. God's diagnosis of the human heart is total ruin, and you will never run to Christ for the cure until you believe it. So let us sit still and let the Great Physician read us the chart.

I first preached this in our series What We Believe, right after we studied the Fall of Man, how Adam sinned and took the whole race down with him. Here we look at what the Fall left behind. Theologians call it total depravity. You will not find that phrase anywhere in your Bible, but you will find the teaching all through it, and you will not find it any plainer than in Romans 3. Study the doctrines of grace for very long and you will end up right here.

What then? Are we better? Not at all; for we have already charged that both Jews and Greeks are all under sin; as it is written,
"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 WORTHLESS;
THERE IS NONE WHO DOES GOOD,
THERE IS NOT EVEN ONE."
"THEIR THROAT IS AN OPEN TOMB,
WITH THEIR TONGUES THEY KEEP DECEIVING,"
"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 PATHS,
AND THE PATH OF PEACE THEY HAVE NOT KNOWN."
"THERE IS NO FEAR OF GOD BEFORE THEIR EYES."
Now we know that whatever the Law says, it speaks to those who are in the Law, so that every mouth may be shut and all the world may become accountable to God; because by the works of the Law NO FLESH WILL BE JUSTIFIED IN HIS SIGHT, for through the Law comes the knowledge of sin. Romans 3:9–20 (LSB)

So reads the infallible, the inerrant, the all-sufficient Word of the living God.

Somebody has called verses 10 through 18 "fourteen horrible things about all men." That is a fair title. Paul spent chapter 1 proving the Gentile guilty and chapter 2 proving the Jew guilty. Here he brings them both into the same courtroom and rests his case. He begins with the question every proud heart wants answered: are we better?

None Righteous

Notice a little shift in Paul's grammar. Back in verse 1 he asked, "Then what advantage has the Jew?" He spoke of the Jews as "they" while he claimed some real advantages for them. In verse 9 the pronoun changes. "Are we better?" Paul, a Hebrew of Hebrews, steps down off the prosecutor's side of the room and takes a seat at the defendant's table with everybody else. The Jew had real privileges. He had been entrusted with the oracles of God. None of it made him better than the Gentile.

"We have already charged." That is a courtroom word. Paul has been laying out the evidence since chapter 1, verse 18. Now he says both Jews and Greeks are "all under sin," under its power and under its guilt. To be under sin is to be guilty, Jew and Gentile alike.

Think how that landed on Paul's first readers. If it is hard to feel it, put it in our terms. Are you, as an American-born citizen, better than the man crossing the southern border illegally? Not at all. We are both under sin.

That does not hit home? You Baptists, are you better than the Presbyterians? Not at all. We were all born sinners, and every one of us needs Jesus and the grace of God.

Oh me and oh my.

There has never been a son or daughter of Adam who stayed on the straight and narrow. We have all wandered off the right road. Only One ever walked this earth without sin, the Lord Jesus Christ, and that is why Scripture calls Him the Righteous One. The title sets Him apart from the rest of us.

Verse 10 opens with four words that settle the matter: "as it is written." Paul quits arguing and starts quoting. Verses 10 through 18 are almost entirely Old Testament Scripture, gathered from the Psalms and Isaiah. Verses 10 through 12 come from Psalm 14, and you will find nearly the same words again in Psalm 53. Listen to David:

Yahweh looks down from heaven upon the sons of men
To see if there is anyone who has insight,
Anyone who seeks after God.
They have all turned aside, altogether they have become worthless;
There is no one who does good, not even one. Psalm 14:2–3 (LSB)

What a reminder that the doctrine of total depravity did not start with Augustine or Calvin, or even with Paul. It has been in the Book all along.

When it comes to Bible doctrine, I am going to back it up with thus saith the Word of God, not thus saith John Calvin, or T.P. Simmons, or Charles Spurgeon, or J.R. Graves. I enjoy those men and I quote them from time to time, but they are not the standard. This Book is. I would rather preach the text than a pretext. You have heard folks say, "God said it, I believe it, and that settles it." I would put it another way. God said it, and that settles it, whether you believe it or not.

So what do we mean by total depravity? Brother Tom Ross gave a simple definition in his book Abandoned Truth. It is out of print now, but you can find it online:

"A simple definition of total depravity is that every man is completely ruined and spiritually corrupt."

That definition cuts two ways. First, depravity is universal. It reaches every natural man without a single exception. Paul says it plainly a few verses later: "for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God" (Romans 3:23).

Second, depravity is total. The word describes the reach of it. Sin has spread into every faculty of the natural man: his mind, his will, his affections, his conscience. Isaiah described Judah like a man beaten from top to bottom:

Where will you be stricken again,
As you continue in your rebellion?
The whole head is sick,
And the whole heart is faint.
From the sole of the foot even to the head
There is nothing sound in it,
Only bruises, wounds, and raw wounds,
Not pressed out, not bandaged,
Not softened with oil. Isaiah 1:5–6 (LSB)

From the head to the feet, nothing sound in it. Hold on to that, because Paul is about to walk us right down the body.

I need to be careful here, because folks misunderstand this doctrine. Total depravity does not mean absolute depravity. Every man is spiritually dead, but that does not mean every man is as wicked as he could possibly be. All men have wicked hearts, yet not every man is an Adolf Hitler or a Charles Manson. There are degrees of it. You have read the stories about gangsters and liquor barons, pimps and dope peddlers, and somewhere in the story every one of them did something decent for somebody. When man measures himself by man, he can always find a little good in himself.

Put that same man next to the holy standard of Jesus Christ and the whole picture changes. Weighed in those balances, he is found wanting, without one ounce of merit or goodness in the sight of God.

Verse 11: "THERE IS NONE WHO UNDERSTANDS." Paul said the same thing to the Corinthians:

But a natural man does not accept the depths of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually examined. 1 Corinthians 2:14 (LSB)

What a blow to the proud Jew and the arrogant Gentile alike. By nature, all of mankind is ignorant of God and does not understand the things of God.

"THERE IS NONE WHO SEEKS FOR GOD." In Scripture, seeking God describes true religion and real piety. Man is plenty religious. The world is full of altars. Left to himself, though, no man goes looking for the true and living God. When you meet a sinner who is seeking God, you can be sure God went looking for him first.

Verse 12: "ALL HAVE TURNED ASIDE." Sin is a wandering, a departure from the right way. Blinded to the beauty of God and His truth, the whole world turned off the road. "TOGETHER THEY HAVE BECOME WORTHLESS." Some of the old Hebrew scholars tied the word behind it in Psalm 14 to milk gone sour, like a jug left out on the counter overnight. Then comes the hammer: "THERE IS NONE WHO DOES GOOD, THERE IS NOT EVEN ONE."

Do you see the awfulness of human nature in just these four verses? This is total depravity. You are hopeless in and of yourself. Apart from the grace of God and the blood of Jesus Christ, you are on the road to an eternal hell. Those are the facts. There is nothing you or I could possibly do to merit the favor of God.

This gets personal. Every one of us carries around a list of people we are glad we are not. Maybe it is the fellow on the news. Maybe it is the Presbyterian down the road, or an ex-husband, or the coworker who cusses every other word. When you catch yourself thinking, "Well, at least I'm not like him," stop right there and answer the way Paul did. Are we better? Not at all.

When you share Christ with somebody this week, do not present Him as a nice addition for basically good people. There are no basically good people. There is none righteous, not even one. Christ came to raise the dead, and that is exactly what every one of us was.

None righteous is God's verdict on the heart. Paul does not leave it in general terms, though. He takes us by the chin and looks inside our mouths.

Mouths Full of Death

It is one thing to say there is none who does good. It is another to prove that every man is busy doing evil, and Paul starts with speech. Throat, tongue, lips, mouth. He walks through the whole machinery of talking, and every piece of it is diseased. You can tell a lot about a man from his words.

Sometimes we read quickly and do not take time to understand. Words mean things, so slow down and let the Spirit show you how deep this goes.

The throat is a busy place. We swallow our food through it and drink our water through it, and we speak with it. Here it stands for speech. Paul uses the Greek word larunx, which comes straight into English as larynx, that organ at the top of the neck we call the voice box.

He says that throat is "AN OPEN TOMB." Some of you grew up reading "open sepulchre." My Legacy Standard Bible says "OPEN TOMB." It is the same word Jesus used when He tore into the Pharisees:

"Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs which on the outside appear beautiful, but inside they are full of dead men's bones and all uncleanness. Matthew 23:27 (LSB)

Those tombs might be a natural cave, a chamber cut into the rock, or a trench in the ground. Whatever shape they took, they were made for one purpose: to hold the dead. They were meant to stay closed.

Have you ever been in the woods, or driven past the spot where a deer had been dead for a few days? It is a horrible smell. For most of us in America, that is about as close as we will ever get to the smell of rotting flesh. If you are in the woods, you find another place to have your picnic. If you are driving, you shut the vents and go a lot faster.

When Jill and I first got married, one of the neighbor's cows fell down a ravine and died. It was July. It was hot. We lived in a trailer with no air conditioning. To make matters worse, the dogs got into that old rotten beef and kept dragging the smell closer to home.

Even a dead mouse in the attic can run you out of the house.

Praise God for burials and closed tombs! Listen to what Paul is saying. Here is how depraved man really is: his voice box is like an open grave, and out of it rolls the stench of death. Nothing offends the senses like a body rotting in an open tomb, and the stink coming out of a grave proves something dead is lying inside. The filthy talk of sinners proves the same thing about the heart.

As good an illustration as that is, remember that the illustration itself is a result of the Fall.

Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned— Romans 5:12 (LSB)

Death and decay are a grim reminder of sin. In our society children are often sheltered from death, and all they ever see is Hollywood's version of it. I believe a boy ought to learn the reality of it before he ever becomes a man. Let him go to the cemetery and watch while the men dig the grave, carry the body, and bury the dead. When the smell and the sight of real death fill his senses, that is a sermon all by itself. It tells him what sin pays, and it gets him ready to hear the good news of a risen Savior who defeated death for everyone who puts their faith and trust in Him.

Back to our text. Paul drew that first line from Psalm 5:9.

"WITH THEIR TONGUES THEY KEEP DECEIVING." Notice the word keep. Deceit is a habit with the natural man, a way of life, more than a slip now and then. Even his flattery usually has a hook in it. That is how business gets done and bargains get made, and how a man looks out for himself in everything that touches his interest.

Lest we think this verse is about somebody else, remember that you and I are still in the flesh. Paul put himself in the dock back in verse 9, and if you read on in this letter you will hear him confess his ongoing war with sin in Romans 7. James gives a warning that ought to make every church member squirm:

If anyone thinks himself to be religious while not bridling his tongue but deceiving his own heart, this man's religion is worthless. James 1:26 (LSB)

"THE POISON OF ASPS IS UNDER THEIR LIPS." That line comes from Psalm 140:3. When I read it, I do not picture a snake that strikes. I picture the kind that spits, the kind that sprays its venom on anybody who gets close enough. The poison sits hidden behind the lips until it comes out. James saw the same thing:

But no one can tame the tongue; it is a restless evil and full of deadly poison. With it we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in the likeness of God. From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers, these things ought not to be so. James 3:8–10 (LSB)

The tongue is full of deadly poison. You cannot escape the law of sowing and reaping on this one.

Verse 14: "WHOSE MOUTH IS FULL OF CURSING AND BITTERNESS." Paul takes this one from Psalm 10:7. Cursing is more than four-letter words, though it certainly includes them. It is cursing God, and cursing godly people, whether they are neighbors or coworkers or presidents. Bitterness takes in sinful talk of every kind, the swearing and the lying and all the rest of it.

Notice the word full. Hardly anything comes out of the natural man's mouth that is not tainted. If you want proof, and if you are privileged enough to get out of the house much, just listen for a few minutes at the restaurant or in line at the grocery store. Most folks will not even bother to apologize.

All of this is a symptom of a deeper problem. Listen to Jesus speak to the Pharisees:

"You brood of vipers, how can you, being evil, speak what is good? For the mouth speaks out of that which fills the heart. "The good man brings out of his good treasure what is good; and the evil man brings out of his evil treasure what is evil. "But I tell you that every careless word that people speak, they shall give an accounting for it in the day of judgment. "For by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned." Matthew 12:34–37 (LSB)

The mouth is only the door. Whatever fills the heart comes walking out of it, and that is exactly what Romans 3 is telling us.

Brethren, I want to bring this home to the church house. When Paul writes Titus about the older women in the church, he says this:

Older women likewise are to be reverent in their behavior, not malicious gossips nor enslaved to much wine, teaching what is good, Titus 2:3 (LSB)

That phrase "malicious gossips" is one Greek word, diabolos. In the King James it is rendered "false accusers" twice and "slanderers" once. Thirty-five times it is rendered "devil." Why would that be?

Then I heard a loud voice in heaven, saying, "Now the salvation, and the power, and the kingdom of our God and the authority of His Christ have come, for the accuser of our brothers has been thrown down, he who accuses them before our God day and night. Revelation 12:10 (LSB)

Satan is the accuser of the brethren. When we are not careful with our mouths, our depraved tongues get drafted into the devil's work. Sadly, I have often thought the devil does not have much work to do in Baptist churches, because of the way we are prone to tear each other up. There is an enemy out there. Bridle your tongue.

Peter shows us the better way:

Now to sum up, all of you be like-minded, sympathetic, brotherly, tender-hearted, and humble in spirit; not returning evil for evil or reviling for reviling, but giving a blessing instead, for you were called for the very purpose that you might inherit a blessing. For, "THE ONE WHO DESIRES LIFE, TO LOVE AND SEE GOOD DAYS,
MUST KEEP HIS TONGUE FROM EVIL AND HIS LIPS FROM SPEAKING DECEIT.
"HE MUST TURN AWAY FROM EVIL AND DO GOOD;
HE MUST SEEK PEACE AND PURSUE IT. 1 Peter 3:8–11 (LSB)

When was the last time you heard a sermon on being sympathetic? On being tender-hearted? Peter puts those right alongside a guarded tongue.

So get specific with yourself. The text you are about to forward, the comment you are about to post, the phone call where you "just want to share a prayer request" about somebody who is not on the line: ask whether it is coming out of an open grave. If it is, shut the lid.

The mouth gives the heart away. Depravity does not stay in the mouth, though. It gets up and walks.

Feet Swift to Ruin

From words Paul moves to deeds. The world is guilty by what it says, and it is guilty by what it does. Once again, Paul is not preaching anything new. He is quoting Isaiah:

Their feet run to evil,
And they are quick to shed innocent blood;
Their thoughts are thoughts of wickedness;
Devastation and destruction are in their highways.
They do not know the way of peace,
And there is no justice in their tracks;
They have made their paths crooked,
Whoever treads on them does not know peace. Isaiah 59:7–8 (LSB)

Solomon said much the same in Proverbs 1:16.

"THEIR FEET ARE SWIFT TO SHED BLOOD." At the slightest provocation, men are ready to kill. Violence becomes a way of life. Watch the news for further details on the truth of this verse: murder and riots, hurting and killing. Everybody has a theory about why. It is the guns, or the video games, or the drugs. Take every one of them off the face of the earth and you would still have murder by Friday, because what we have is a sin problem. Cain killed his brother Abel back in Genesis 4, and there was not a gun or a video game or a drug anywhere in the case.

Is it not plain even in this country how quickly people will rise up to defend the shedding of innocent blood? More than sixty million children have been lost to abortion in the United States since 1973. Multitudes will stand up and defend that bloodbath.

"DESTRUCTION AND MISERY ARE IN THEIR PATHS." These feet do not stop at shedding blood. Their whole path through life is marked by the ruin and misery they spread around them. Study history and archaeology, then turn on the news, and you will find the Bible is true. The folks who loudly proclaim that the human race keeps improving are blind deceivers, blind to history and blind to the rising tide of violence all around them. Hear our Lord:

"And just as it was in the days of Noah, so it will be also in the days of the Son of Man: Luke 17:26 (LSB)

What were the days of Noah like?

Now the earth was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence. Genesis 6:11 (LSB)

That is the kind of world we live in.

"AND THE PATH OF PEACE THEY HAVE NOT KNOWN." The sinner does not know how to live peaceably. It is a sad commentary on the history of mankind, but a truthful one. Even the most savage animals do not destroy their own kind the way man does. A lion kills to fill his belly. Man kills to satisfy his ambition or his revenge. Revolutions, wars, and murders all testify to the truth of this verse.

It is not only the State Department and the soldiers, the kings and the presidents, who do not know the path of peace. There is a battle going on in our own hearts, and you can see this depravity in churches all across the world. Church history has gone from the Trail of Blood to a trail of mud. I seriously doubt there will be any rewards handed out on judgment day for the mudslinging and divisiveness that has gone on over some of the things people have split over.

Go into most any town and you will not find just one Baptist church. You will find several. Sometimes the difference is a major doctrine, like Calvinism and Arminianism. More times than not, it is something secondary. Say there are two Baptist churches in town. One practices the head covering and the other does not, and that is the only difference between them. Go back far enough in their history and you will find they used to be one church. They split over the head covering. Somebody will argue it is more peaceable for them to be apart, and then you find out they have no fellowship with each other at all. They agree on ninety-nine percent of everything and will not speak over the one percent.

Repeat that all over the country, division after division, little kingdoms where men can guard their pet doctrines and keep control over people. The path of peace they have not known.

Maybe you are thinking, "Finally, Preacher, this part is about somebody else. I've never shed anybody's blood." Listen to John:

We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brothers. The one who does not love abides in death. Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him. By this we have known love, that He laid down His life for us; and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers. 1 John 3:14–16 (LSB)

Did you catch verse 15? The man who hates his brother has blood on his feet whether he ever lifted a hand or not. Who is your brother? He is not only the one who looks just like you and votes just like you. It is easy to get caught up in our echo chambers. That can be encouraging for a while, but it turns into a problem, and you can watch it happen on social media every day.

Paul tells us how to walk instead:

Therefore I, the prisoner in the Lord, exhort you to walk worthy of the calling with which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, being diligent to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. Ephesians 4:1–3 (LSB)

Be diligent. That means you work at it. Jesus put His blessing on the very people this world will never produce on its own:

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God. Matthew 5:9 (LSB)

Is there a brother in Christ, maybe in your own church, maybe in a Baptist church across town, that you have cut off over something secondary? Support the weak. Lay down your life for the brethren. The path of peace starts with your own two feet.

Mouths and feet, words and ways. Paul has one more line from the Psalms, and it tells us where all of it comes from.

Every Mouth Shut

"THERE IS NO FEAR OF GOD BEFORE THEIR EYES." Verse 18 is the last charge on Paul's list, and it is the source of all the others. It comes from Psalm 36:1.

By the fear of God we mean reverence for God, piety toward Him, and a real dread of His wrath. Man's depravity proves he has none of it. The reckless wickedness of men shows they are destitute of any proper regard for God. They live as though there were no God, no One with the right to call them to account and the power to punish them for their iniquity. God is not "BEFORE THEIR EYES." They never look His way.

Verse 19 brings the whole argument into the courtroom. "Whatever the Law says, it speaks to those who are in the Law." That first clause is aimed at the Jew, who had the written Law. The second clause reaches the whole world, Jew and Gentile both: "so that every mouth may be shut and all the world may become accountable to God."

I want you to see this. Remember all those mouths in verses 13 and 14? The open tomb, the deceiving tongue, the poisoned lips, the mouth full of cursing. Here is God's answer to every one of them. Shut. The law is God's mouth stopper. Where a man might boast, the law tells him to hush up, he is a sinner. Where the flesh rises up and says, "I can do enough good works to earn God's favor," the law points him to Isaiah:

For all of us have become like one who is unclean,
And all our righteous deeds are like a filthy garment;
And all of us wither like a leaf,
And our iniquities, like the wind, carry us away. Isaiah 64:6 (LSB)

Notice it does not stop at our sins. Our righteous deeds, the very best things we ever did, are a filthy garment in God's sight.

Remember Uzzah?

Then they came to the threshing floor of Nacon. And Uzzah reached out toward the ark of God and took hold of it, because the oxen nearly upset it. And the anger of Yahweh burned against Uzzah, and God struck him down there for his irreverence; and he died there by the ark of God. 2 Samuel 6:6–7 (LSB)

Why was God so angry? Uzzah only wanted to keep the ark from hitting the ground. Think of it this way. Who was Uzzah to think his hand was cleaner than the dirt?

Truly, the law shuts the mouth. Picture a courtroom once all the evidence is in, and the defense has nothing left to say. That is where verse 19 leaves the whole human race: all the world accountable to God.

Verse 20 draws the conclusion of everything Paul has argued since chapter 1, verse 18. "By the works of the Law NO FLESH WILL BE JUSTIFIED IN HIS SIGHT." The law is not the answer for man's sinfulness. In fact, the law condemns. Whether you mean the law God wrote on the Gentile's heart or the written law He gave the Jews, there is no hope to be found in it. "Through the Law comes the knowledge of sin."

The law works like a mirror. A mirror will show you every speck of dirt on your face, but you will never get clean by scrubbing with it. Paul says it again in Galatians:

But the Scripture has shut up everyone under sin, so that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe. Galatians 3:22 (LSB)

Quit arguing your case. Some of you have been building a defense your whole life. "I was baptized when I was twelve." "I'm a good person, Preacher. Better than most." The law has heard all of it, and it shuts every mouth. If there is anything you have done that you are counting on to get you into heaven, today is the day to let go of it.

For those of you who know the Lord: when you witness, do not skip this part. Folks have to hear the bad news before the good news makes any sense. Nobody runs to the Physician until he believes he is sick.

The law has said all it can say. It can shut your mouth, but it cannot save your soul.

But Now

It is a tough message. Paul started with the heart, moved to the mouth and the feet, and ended at the eyes, and he has left the whole human race standing in a courtroom with nothing to say. Jew and Gentile, Baptist and Presbyterian, the man in the pew and the man in the pulpit, all of us are under sin.

Maybe this is why this doctrine, and the whole system of the doctrines of grace, is so hated in the world. Man wants to be the hero in the story. He will take a little help from God, maybe, but he wants the credit, and total depravity will not give him any. But beloved, Jesus is the hero of your story and mine, or you were never really saved.

That is Bible truth.

Do not close your Bible yet. Look at the very next verse.

But now apart from the Law the righteousness of God has been manifested, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets, even the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all those who believe; for there is no distinction; for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus; Romans 3:21–24 (LSB)

"But now." The law shut the door on every man's own righteousness, and God opened another door in His Son.

Peter shows us the One who stood in the middle of Romans 3 and did not fit the description:

WHO DID NO SIN, NOR WAS ANY DECEIT FOUND IN HIS MOUTH; who being reviled, was not reviling in return; while suffering, He was uttering no threats, but kept entrusting Himself to Him who judges righteously. Who Himself bore our sins in His body on the tree, so that having died to sin, we might live to righteousness; by His WOUNDS YOU WERE HEALED. 1 Peter 2:22–24 (LSB)

Our tongues keep deceiving, and no deceit was ever found in His mouth. Our mouths are full of cursing, and when they reviled Him, He did not revile back. Isaiah said we were wounded from head to foot, with sores nobody would bandage. Christ took wounds of His own, and by His wounds you were healed. Our throats are open graves full of death. He went down into a real grave for sinners, and on the third day that tomb stood open and empty.

Here is the warning. If you are not in Christ, Romans 3:19 is waiting on you. One day you will stand before God with a speech all ready. You will want to tell Him about your good intentions and how much better you were than the next fellow. You will not get the words out. Every mouth will be shut, and you will stand accountable to a holy God with nothing to say and nothing to plead.

Here is the comfort. If you are in Christ, the mouth the law shut, grace has opened:

that if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved; for with the heart a person believes, leading to righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, leading to salvation. Romans 10:9–10 (LSB)

The law shuts your mouth so that grace can open it to confess Jesus as Lord. The throat that was an open tomb gets to sing His praise.

Have you been washed in the blood of the Lamb? If not, quit pleading your own case and plead His. Come to Christ today. If you want to talk about it, reach out to us.

Child of God, you have been rescued from all of this, but the flesh has not moved out yet. So here is a charge for this week.

Before next Lord's Day, think of one person you have talked about more than you have talked to. Pray for that person by name every day this week, and keep your lips shut about them to everybody else. If something needs to be said, say it to them, in love and in person.

If there is a brother or sister you have cut off over a secondary matter, maybe somebody in another Baptist church across town, call them before Sunday comes again. You do not have to settle the disagreement on the phone. Walk the path of peace far enough to say, "I've missed you, brother." Peter said, "HE MUST SEEK PEACE AND PURSUE IT." Go after it this week.