But first of all let me say that there are no good people; they are all bad. Listen closely to the testimony of Jesus Christ, "There is none good save One, that is, God." (Matthew 19:17) Do you believe it? I didn't say it, He did. How then can there be any good people in the world, when Christ says there are none?
Paul had the same testimony. He said, "There is none righteous, no, not one." (Romans 3:10) That includes you and your family members, and everybody you know, does it not? If there are none righteous, no good people, not even one, then you, too, cannot be good. Paul's statement is, "For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God." (Romans 3:23) Well then, if all have sinned, all are bad and no one is good. Isaiah the prophet likewise makes the same charge. He says, "All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned everyone to his own way." (Isaiah 53:6) So if all have gone astray, then all are bad and none are good.
WHAT ABOUT INDIVIDUALS
But what about individuals? Let us question some of the best men of all time. Take Job, for instance, one of the most upright men that ever lived. What does he say about himself? Listen! "I am vile." (Job 40:4) If he was vile, what about you? Now hear Peter the apostle: "I am a sinful man, O Lord." (Luke 5:8) And Paul said that he was the “chief of sinners.” (I Timothy 1:15) Are you any better?
My friend, suppose an angel at the judgment flashes motion pictures of all your thoughts and acts on a screen and calls your family and friends to view them, tell me, how would you feel? Be honest now. Could you stand it? Or would you want to hide your face in shame? You who pride yourself on your goodness, you who think you are good enough to enter Heaven on your own, you who profess perfection, tell me, have you never indulged in one impure imagination, have you never committed a secret act of sin that you would not for all the world want to see portrayed on a screen? Remember back into your past closely. Think now. God sees and hears your thought life at all times. The thought of foolishness is sin.
Well then, if you cannot bear the thought of man knowing and seeing your innermost life, how do you propose to stand before a holy God that knows all about you from the time you were in the womb? My friend, you know you are not good, for if you were, you would not hesitate to let the whole world see you as you are, your every thought, word, and act from childhood days to this present moment. If you are not perfect, you are not good, but bad. You are bad, I am bad, we are all bad. There is none that doeth good, no, not one.
Besides, does not your own conscience condemn you? You say you are living up to the light you have, and you think that if you do, all will be well. Now be honest, you knew perfectly well what you should have done, and yet you didn't do it, and violated your conscience.. You deliberately turned from the light and went your own selfish way. And if you did that just once, then you’ve sinned. How then can you claim to be good? Oh, you may have done better than others, and much better than the church members you know, but the fact remains, that you did not walk in the light you had, and, "To him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin." (James 4:17) So then, you are bad after all, for you have failed once at least. And all unrighteousness is sin, and whatsoever is not of faith is sin.
But!" you exclaimed, "I only failed once, just once, in all my life." Yes, and Eve in the Garden of Eden, too, only failed once, just once. She ate but one bite of one piece of fruit, not even two bites - just one, but the one bite made her a sinner. And so it is with you. It only takes one sin in thought or act to make you a sinner.
THERE’S NO HOPE FOR THE GOOD
Now in the second place, I want to say that no provision has ever been made for the salvation of the good. Jesus said, "I come not to call the righteous [the good], but sinners [the bad] to repentance." (Luke 5:32) Paul said, "Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners [the bad]" (I Timothy 1:15), and that, Christ died for the ungodly [the bad]. (Romans 5:6) There’s no hope for good people.
In other words, if you are good, there is no salvation for you, for you do not need it. Jesus said,"They that are whole need not a physician, but they that are sick." (Luke 5:31) The Pharisees, righteous in their own eyes, were utterly unconscious of their need. It is the lost who need to be saved, the sick who need a physician. But it is so hard to get self-righteous men and women to realize their need, to admit their guilt. Sin and unbelief blinds their minds to God’s grace.
GOD’S GRACE IS ONLY FOR SINNERS
In the third place, then, I would point out that abundant provision has been made for sinners. Who was saved in Jericho? Rahab. And what kind of a woman was Rahab? Bad; she was a harlot. And why was she saved? First, because she knew she was a sinner. Second, because she believed the word of God. Third, because she had faith to hang out the Scarlet Thread, typifying the blood. But all the so called good people of Jericho perished. God only saves real sinners.
Again and again, Jesus sought the bad and saved them. He saved Mary Magdalene out of whom He cast seven devils. Yes, and the woman in Simon's house who was a sinner. Then, too, the woman taken in adultery was forgiven, and don't forget the woman of Samaria by Jacob's well that had five husbands. And what about, Matthew and Zacchaeus the publicans, or Peter the cursing fisherman, and then there was the thief on the cross. These were all saved, and all of them were bad. Not that Christ places a premium on sin; by no means. But they all knew that they were sinners and since it is for sinners that salvation is provided, Christ Jesus saved them. For by grace are ye saved through faith.
Christ saved good people, too, but they were good people who knew they were sinners. He saved Nicodemus, Joseph of Arimathea, and Paul, and Cornelius. Yes, my friend, and He will save you, too, but not until you admit that you, too, are a sinner, guilty before God, a sinner with no righteousness of your own. "All our righteousnesses are as filthy rags,” God says in Isaiah 64:6. But as long as you think you are good enough to save yourself, or help save yourself, Christ can do nothing for you. He only came to save helpless sinners, and as for me, I'm only a sinner and nothing at all, but Jesus Christ is my all in all. The chief reason any man goes to Hell is that he rejects the cure for his sin problem, the Blood of Jesus Christ.
The moral man came to the Judgment,
But his self-righteous rags would not do;
The men who had crucified Jesus
Had passed off as moral men, too;
The soul that had put off salvation, and said
“Not tonight; I’ll get saved by and by,
No time now to think of Jesus!”
At last he had found time to die.
There are absolutes. There is a God, you have sinned against Him, God must punish your sin, you must die and enter into judgment. God made you and feeds you every day, but you have rebelled against Him. You have willfully sinned against God’s law and holiness. The soul that sinneth it shall die; and the wages of sin is eternal death and separation from God in the lake of fire. If you are without Christ, God's wrath is abiding upon you now (John 3:36). You have denied there is a God and wished there was none at times. You have denied God’s existence and despised His goodness. You're an enemy to God in your mind by wicked works. You have loved your sin.
All through your life you have went further and further off from God. In time past you walked according to the course of this world, under the power of Satan and the children of disobedience, and you are walking in the lusts of your flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; you are without hope, by nature a child of wrath, out of Christ, condemned already, and in danger of eternal punishment. Your understanding is darkened by your sinful rebellion, and your iniquity has alienated you from the life of God through the ignorance that is in you. Because of the blindness of your heart, you are past feeling and have given yourself over unto lasciviousness, to work all uncleanness with greediness. You need to find peace with God, and the only one that can give you peace with God is the One that took the punishment that is due to your sins.
Christ Jesus Himself must get all the glory for saving you, and you must get none. Your very best efforts are sinful and selfish, and will take you to hell. The rich young ruler, you remember, boasted of his goodness. The proud Pharisee prided himself on his righteousness, but both of them were lost. But the publican cried out, "God be merciful to me a sinner." The publican went home justified and saved to the uttermost, the Pharisee went home lost, all alone, and still in the darkness of his sin. This man (Christ Jesus) receiveth sinners. He loves to save the sinful, and heal the brokenhearted. You need to quit worrying about what people may think about you, and be concerned about what God thinks about you. The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom. Oh, then, my friend, come to Him, but come as a sinner, and receive the sinner's Savior. Come just as you are, don't try to clean up at all, and He will save you now. God be merciful to me a sinner through Jesus’ Blood.
