Godbey's Commentary - Acts - Romans - Enter His Rest

points out to the sinner the “highway,” and to the Christian the “holy way,” it most clearly and
emphatically points out the devil’s side-tracks which lead down to hell, at the same time warning the
traveler to keep out of them. Here we have a most horrific, demonstrative and terrifying presentation
of Satan’s way to hell, given as a solemn warning that we may keep out of it. What is to become of
the people when their own pastor points out this way and recommends it to them, which is now being
done in countless instances in order to refute sanctification and defeat the Holiness Movement? The
only hope in all such cases is that God will have mercy and save the people in spite of the preacher
and the devil, too.
10. “As has been written, that there is none righteous, no, not one,” i.e., not a single one of the
above classes, i.e., Jews and Greeks who are all under sin, i.e., all church members of all ages and
nations so far as the efficacy of membership, water baptism, church rites and legal obedience are
concerned. Since these things, though all right in their places, never did have any power to justify
a soul; therefore they leave all their votaries in their sins both actual and original, on the same plane
with the unregenerate heathen.
11. “Neither does any one understand, neither is there any one who seeketh out God,” i.e.,
seeketh God till he finds Him. Hence the legitimate conclusion confirmatory of the utter
impossibility that any one through water baptism, sacraments, church-rites, legal obedience and
ecclesiastical loyalty can possibly ever reach a personal knowledge of God in the salvation of the
soul, that being a personal enterprise on the part of the human spirit and the Holy Spirit, utterly
independent of clerical, ritualistical or legalistic administrations.
12. “All have gone away from him, they have all together failed; there is no one that doeth good,
no, not one.” Man has been a failure in all dispensations. He failed in Eden, winding up with the fall.
He failed in antediluvian times, swept away by the great flood. He failed in the patriarchal
dispensation, going down into Egyptian slavery. He failed in the Jewish dispensation, culminating
in the awful destruction of Jerusalem and the people by the Roman armies. He failed in the
dispensation of our Savior’s ministry, winding up with the disgraceful scene of Calvary. According
to the prophecies, the Gentile dispensation, amid whose fugitive retreat we now live, is, like its
predecessors, destined to wind up with the horrific tragedies of the great tribulation. Is not that very
discouraging? Not to me. Man was never created an independency. Hence when left alone he has
always failed, and always will. This is to us a most profitable lesson. Shall we not heed the warning
of our ruined predecessors and all fly to God, who is the only success? Whosoever departs from God
plunges into ruin, world without end.
13. “Their throat is an open sepulcher; with their tongues they have used deceit; the poison of
asps is under their lips.” This is an awful description of the above who depart from God. This
picture is progressive, this verse describing an advanced state of alienation from God.
14. “Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness.” The darkness continues to intensify as we
proceed away from God.
15. “Their feet are swift to shed blood.” Not only is this true of wicked worldly people who are
ready to waylay and murder you, but it is equally true of the fallen churches; as we see through ages