Now, Scripture as a step-off
point and lead-in to the sermon today. The first two passages
I'll read are short and offered just as an affirmation of what
we believe and what our hope in hearing the sermon is. The
first I will read today is 2 Timothy 3, 16 and 17, all Scripture. is breathed out by God and profitable
for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training
in righteousness, that the man of God may be competent, equipped
for every good work. The second is from Romans chapter
15 verse 4. For whatever was written in former
days was written for our instruction. that through endurance and through
the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope. Again, I
offer these just as an affirmation of what we believe to be true,
what we know to be true of the Scripture, and as we discuss
matters of our God and Christ from the Scripture today, let's
understand that there is truth there for us and may we learn.
from our God. The next passage is Ephesians
chapter 2 verses 1-6 And you were dead in trespasses
and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this
world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit
that is now at work in the sons of disobedience, among whom we
all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the
desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of
wrath, like the rest of mankind. But God being rich in mercy because
of the great love with which he loved us even when we were
dead in our trespasses made us alive together with Christ. By
grace you have been saved and raised up and raises us up with
him and seats us with him in the heavenly places. in Christ
Jesus. A passage that we'll get to eventually,
John chapter 6 verse 44 where Jesus tells us that no one can
come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. The main
passage that we will get to but I will not read because it's
a long passage but I ask that you note it and we'll discuss
it more at length shortly and that is John chapter 11 verses
1 through 44 and this is the story of the death of Lazarus
and his being raised to life by Jesus Christ. My topic today
is total depravity with a focus on total inability. And this generates from a couple
of discussions that I had over the last two weeks with some
friends, Christian friends, And people right now, and I think
we can know this from our own experience and also from the
people that we know and talk to around us, but people are
troubled now. You look at the news, read the
papers, read the news on the internet, wherever you draw your
information from, you realize that the economy's a mess. You
realize that the state of our politics in this country is a
mess. And you realize that spiritually we as a nation are a people that
seem to be gone astray. And as I talk to people, and
I assume maybe you do too, find this that people are at odds,
confused, wondering what in the world is going on and what are
the answers. Where are the answers? I can't
make sense of this. And as I talk to my friends,
and again, let me stress that these were Christian friends.
I have gotten to the point in my life, maybe good, maybe bad,
I can't say, but where my circles of association have narrowed
up and I generally don't talk to a whole lot of non-Christians
anymore. That may be an indictment of
me, I don't know, but that is the reality of my circle of friends. But I find this confusion in
my friends, and at times, I must say, in myself. And I would hope
that we as Christians would know where to go for the answers.
I would hope that we as Christians would be able to look out and
identify the problems and know where to go to find the answers
and solutions. But I also realize there are
times that we can be so overwhelmed. We can have so much stuff coming
at us from so many different directions that we lose our own
bearings. That's been, I think, the case
in some of the discussions I've had with some of my friends.
And with that in mind, I just offer this to us, and I hope
that it sticks in my mind and my heart as well, that we would
always, as brothers and sisters in Christ, seek to encourage
each other, to speak the truth to each other. And as we find
ourselves or those around us confused, let us work to bring
peace and comfort in Jesus Christ to our brothers and sisters.
Because, as I said, people are swirling right now. People are
out of sorts. Another discussion I had this
week had to do with depravity. And I was talking to a friend
of mine who's been a long time Christian, and I thought we were
on the same page when it comes to salvation the human condition,
Christ and what Christ has done for us. And I realized, and this
goes to show that we can know people and talk to people for
a long time and not really understand what their position is. I don't know why I should be
shocked by that, but at times I am. And I realized that my
friend had a very different view of the human condition and what
salvation in Christ means. And I realized that his view
of depravity, while for years we have talked and he has given
me His view of depravity, either
I didn't hear or he didn't voice it well, but he believed in depravity,
a form of depravity, but not a total depravity. And I think
we've all understood that there is another view of depravity
that falls short of total depravity. Any Christian that we talk to
will give lip service to human depravity. Oh yes, brother, all
Christians are sinners. All Christians have fallen short
of the glory of God. We will all agree to that, and
in that we are all right. The problem comes in when you
start talking about the implications of that. What does that mean
and how does that play itself out in our lives? And that's
where the second part, depravity, comes in and that is total inability. And I think in this case I'm
speaking to a group of fellow believers who understand that.
I think we're well versed in total depravity and total inability,
but at the same time I needed to review it myself. I needed
to get myself back into an understanding. I realized as I talked to my
friend that he had a different view of the human condition and
the ability of We, people, to respond to Christ in our condition. Salvation today, if you turn
on the TV, the radio, read the Christian books, takes any number
of meanings. Any number of meanings. Christ,
according to some, is here to cure any number of diseases. He's here to bring financial
healing to your wallet, to your checkbook, to your bank account.
He is here to do any number of these things. And these are all
considered to be salvation. And they may be a salvation. If you're swimming in debt, winning
the lotto is salvation. But it's not the salvation that
Christ spoke of. Sinners are presented today as
being mistaken, misguided, weakened, confused. Rarely, rarely are
sinners presented as vile and wicked and enemies of God. All of that is true. We are mistaken. We are misguided. We're weakened.
We're confused. But that's not the total picture. It's not a complete understanding
of our condition. To better understand our spiritual
condition, really we should begin in the beginning. In the Garden of Eden. And let
us remember Adam and Eve as they stood in the Garden. Created
by God in perfection. Perfect world, if you will. Fellowshiping
with God. walking with God in the garden,
one command put before them, do not eat of the tree. All else was acceptable for them. The command carried a penalty. The day you eat from the tree,
you will die. The day you eat from the tree,
you will die. We know the story, Adam and Eve
did eat. They were judged by God. They
were punished by God. There were immediate and noticeable
effects of their sin, of their violation of this command of
God. Immediately upon eating, they
understood they were naked. Prior to that, there was no shame
in that. There was nothing wrong with
them being naked. But upon eating, they realized
they were naked and it meant something to them. They covered
themselves. And they feared God. Before, they fellowshiped with
God. Now, immediately upon eating,
they feared God and they hid from God. The ultimate result of all of
this was that Adam and Eve were cast out of the garden. And something
that I hadn't really thought much about but is significant
as well is that they were barred from returning to the garden.
And not just told you can't come back. They were barred from the
garden, if you will, by an armed guard. By a cherub with a sword. They were not allowed back into
the direct presence of God. Eventually, their physical life
ended. They died. They were buried.
But let us remember again that God said, the day you eat, you
will die. Adam and Eve physically lived
years after the event. But God said, the day you eat,
you will die. Something happened the moment
they ate. Their relationship with God was
ended. It was immediately altered forever. They realized at that instance,
that something had changed. They knew it. Now whether they
understood it completely, I don't know. I wasn't there. And the
scripture doesn't tell us how much they grasped of the event
and the results of the event. But we do know that immediately
they covered themselves. They knew something had changed.
They saw a different vision and they covered themselves. And
they knew that God would be upset about this. And they hid. They hid. Their relationship
with God was forever altered at that moment. I take it that was the death. That was the death. Now the ultimate
physical result of that spiritual death was their physical death. Years later, but the minute they
ate, their relationship with God was forever altered. They
died. They died. And again, let's remember
that they were cast out of the direct presence of God. They
were cast out of the garden and they were barred from returning. God controlled the entrance to
the garden. They could not go in. If they
wanted to go in, they could not go in. They had no hope of returning
to the garden. Now this, I think, is what Paul
is drawing back to when he says, you were dead in sin and trespass. You were dead in sin and trespass. Now, Paul recognized in his writings
that humans in their natural condition cannot know God. It's not possible. He says they're
dead. In another place he tells us that they can't know, the
natural man cannot know spiritual things because it's not in him
to know it. It is not in him to know it. Let's remember what we think, what we know,
what we understand of death just so we can grasp the import of
this statement that you were dead in trespassing sin. Every
one of us in this room I think has experienced the death of
someone near to us. We understand that when it happens, it's an end. It is an end, it is final, and it
is irreversible. It's unpleasant, to say the least. Like I say, we've experienced
this. We know this to be true. We've said goodbye to those that
were close to us. and we've realized in our hearts
the finality of it. Remember that. Remember that
experience in your own life and then remember the words of Paul. You were dead in trespass and
sin. Put the heavy weight of death
into that statement. This is our depravity. This is our inability. A corpse can do nothing. Can do nothing. There is no response. There's
no desire. There's nothing. This is our depravity. This is our inability, dead in
sin and trespass. Now the passage that we read
in the very beginning from Romans, whatever was written
in former days was written for our instruction. Let us look
now at the case of Lazarus in John chapter 11. I can say it's
a long passage. We know the story. We'll discuss
briefly the high points and then draw from it. But let's look
at the story because here is a picture that's very significant. And this, let us remember, happened
to real people in a real time and a real place. This is not
a made-up story. This is not a fable to make a
point. These are real events, but God
in His providence brought it to bear and recorded it for us
so, yes, that we could learn its history but also learn its
lesson. And God has things to show us
in this instance. Let's look at the story of Lazarus.
Lazarus and his sisters, Mary and Martha, were close friends
of Jesus. They were very close friends.
within his tight inner circle, if you will. These were close
friends of Jesus. Not on the periphery at all.
And they were believers in Jesus as the Messiah. They recognized
Him as a dear friend of their family, of themselves, but they
also knew that Jesus was much more than a personal friend,
much more than a mere man. He was the Messiah. They did
recognize this. They knew this. become sick. And it was a life-threatening
illness. This wasn't just a common cold.
He wasn't suffering from a flare-up of his allergies. He didn't stump
his toe getting out of bed. It was none of this. This was
a life-threatening illness. And we know this because they
were worried enough to send runners to Jesus to let Him know that
Lazarus was sick. This was a life-threatening illness.
Now they sent runners to Jesus because they knew He's the Messiah. They knew this. And they had
seen Him heal the sick. They knew that if Jesus would
come and say the word, Lazarus would be up off the bed of affliction. He would not suffer anymore from
this illness. This life-threatening illness.
Jesus, upon hearing the news, seems to discount it. It says Lazarus is sleeping, and
he lingers for two days. Lazarus dies. He dies. Now Jesus knew that
he had died. He didn't catch Jesus by surprise,
and when the disciples asked him, What's going on? Lazarus is sick. We're still
here. He's asleep. And I said, well,
if he's asleep, he'll get better then. He's resting. That's good.
And he said, no, you don't understand. Lazarus is dead. But this has happened for a reason.
That you'll see the glory of God. Jesus knew that Lazarus
was dead. Didn't catch him by surprise.
And after the days, Jesus goes to Bethany, to the home of Lazarus.
There he finds the family mourning. The sisters are confused. They
knew that Jesus could heal Lazarus. There's no question about it.
They knew that. But he didn't come. And they
tell him If you had just been here, Lazarus would not have
died. They had every confidence in
the world that Jesus could have raised up a sick man. They knew He was the Messiah.
They knew He could raise a sick man. One of the sisters tells him
if you'd been here he wouldn't have died and he says Lazarus
will be raised up. She tells him yes in the resurrection
I understand that. At this point she was given to
the apparent fact that Lazarus was dead. There was nothing beyond
that and the physical life. He was just dead. That was the
end of it. It's unfortunate. She didn't
understand why Jesus didn't get there faster. But the moment
for healing had passed. Lazarus was dead. She recognized that Jesus could
have raised him up from the bed of affliction. She did not expect
him to raise him from the dead. Her view was that, well, He will
raise up in the resurrection. Jesus and the family and other
mourners go to the grave. I would speculate From what you
read in the scripture, what I read in the scripture, they're still
confused. They don't understand why Jesus lingered, was slow
to come. They don't understand what he's
going to do at the grave. He orders the grave to be opened. One of the sisters says, and
she's obviously confused. She's obviously confused. She's
in a state of complete confusion. None of this is making sense
to her. He orders the grave to be open and she's worried about
this because he's been dead for some days now and his body is
in a state of decay. She tells him, you know, he's
been dead for some days. He stinks. This is not going
to be good. He already stinks. At this point, Jesus issues the
command, calls out Lazarus, come forth. Lazarus walks out of the grave. Lazarus walks out of the grave
very much alive. Very much alive. Now again, let's remember, this
is not mythology. This is a real story. It involved
real people in a real time and a real place. God has recorded
this for us to learn from it. There's a lesson to be learned
here. There is the historical lesson
contained in the events that we just discussed. But there
is the spiritual lesson that we can learn by the examples
of all the people in this story. What do we know from this story? What is to be learned? We know that death, spiritual
and physical death are the results of sin. Disobedience to God brought
about spiritual death and that has its effects in the natural
world and physical death as a result of spiritual death. We know that
death is final and irreversible. We know that we, we have absolutely
no power to overcome death. None. We are not masters over
death. We are subject to death and the
resultant decay. We have no power to overcome
death. We learn from this story of Lazarus
and his being raised to life that Jesus Christ is the master over death. He overcomes spiritual death
and physical death. Why is this important that we
learn these lessons from the story? If we misunderstand the human
condition We will misunderstand our need of salvation, and we
will misunderstand the very nature of salvation itself. One of the things that has always
stuck with me, even from my first days in this church, Brother
Bill preached that if you are wrong on depravity, you will
be wrong on everything else. And I think that is very true.
If we misunderstand the human condition, then we do not understand
what Jesus is bringing to us in salvation. We don't. Now let me draw back to my Arminian
free will days. And remember the gospel story
that we often presented in sermons. And I know you've heard these.
These are not new. But I rehearse it again now just
as remembrance and let's see what we used to believe maybe. The gospel was often presented
as a person is drowning. It's a bad situation. The seas
are rough. He is drowning. He's going down
for the third time. He's thrashing. He's screaming. He's hoping and hollering for
help. His hands are up reaching. And God will reach down and take
His hand. And that's salvation coming to
us. Or, maybe this, a person has
fallen into a pit. He is deep down in the pit. It
is impossible for him to climb out of that pit. He's screaming, he's hollering.
Now, to add complication to it, the story may go that the man
is badly injured. His arms and his legs are broken. He's crying out for help. He
wants salvation. And God comes by and rescues
him from the pit. Each of these scenarios, each
of these stories presents a picture of a human condition. And they're
bad. but again I would tell you they're
not the complete picture because they still leave some ability
within a human and some ability to take salvation
within a human and I don't think as good as those stories may
be that they present us with the true picture. And I think
the picture that we see in Lazarus is indeed the true biblical picture
of our condition in sin. Lazarus was not just in a pit,
falling down, unable to get out. Lazarus was dead. Lazarus was in the grave. Dead. Dead. And worse than that, Lazarus
was in a state of decay. No life. None. No hope. None. No ability. None. There is no hope for Lazarus
except that God would save him. No hope. Lazarus was unable to
do anything. He couldn't even desire Christ
to save him. He was dead. He was dead. And God in the person of Jesus
Christ did indeed save Lazarus. He called him forth from the
grave. And Lazarus came forth. He was
saved. Now this is a true picture of
our human condition. We are dead to God. We are dead
to God. Now, oftentimes people tell me,
and I know they've told you as you've discussed with friends
about matters of religion, You know, I'm not an enemy of God. I'm not dead to God. He's not dead to me. I seek God. And then when you talk to Him,
you find out that they may be seeking a God. A God. Scripture would say a God of
their own imagination. A God that will meet their physical
needs in a way they want and expect, but not necessarily addressing
their greatest need, the need of their heart. A need to deal
with their sin. Now we know from the scripture
also that our human condition is that we are unable. We are
dead to God and as such we are unable truly seek God, and we
are unable to desire God, we are unable to understand God. There is nothing in us that desires
or would seek after the true God. Nothing. Again, we may seek after a God,
it will be a God of our imagination. And many people are deceived
into thinking that that is religion. true religion. There are many gods in this world.
Many gods. Not real gods, but you know what
I'm saying. There are many things that people
would seek after as God. But here is the good news, and
our condition is terrible news. That's the bad news of the gospel. Here's the good news, is that
while we are yet dead to God, and unable to even find God,
God in Christ is knowing us. And I say is knowing us because
I want that to be ever-present. God from eternity past to eternity
future is knowing His people. It is an active relationship
even though we may be unaware of it. God is knowing us and
God is seeking us. At a point in time, just as Jesus
called Lazarus, He finds us And He calls us. And because God has given life,
even as He gave life to Lazarus in the grave, we hear His call. And we come forth. And that is
the good news that Jesus Christ seeks His people. His people
who are dead. And He finds them and He calls
them and they come forth. He gives us life and brings us
to Himself. That is the good news of the
gospel. Our condition is hopeless. Our
God in Jesus Christ is all hope. I would ask in closing just remember
the story of Lazarus and I realize it's an extreme story and the
application to our own lives will not be direct because none
of us in this room are yet dead. None of us were dead called back
to life but our condition is pitiful or was pitiful. Think about your life where you
were what the state of your life was, what you were involved in,
who your friends were when you heard the call of Jesus
Christ. Remember back to that. That was the moment that Christ
said, come forth, and you did. And you did. Each one of us has
a different story about how our lives went and where we were
when that call came. But the call is nonetheless true
for you as it was for me, as it was for each one of us. We
were all not in a proper relationship
with God. Whether we were religious or
not, we were not in the right relationship with God. And we
may or may not have even had any inkling that we were in a
bad relationship with God. But he issued life to us, gave
us life. We heard his call and we came
forth. And that was good news for us. And that is good news for all. who will hear the call of Christ
even as Lazarus heard the call of Christ. Let me close again
with Ephesians chapter 2 verse 1 through 6. And let's listen
to it again and be thankful that God saves sinners in Jesus Christ. And you were dead in the trespasses
and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this
world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit
that is now at work in the sons of disobedience, among whom we
all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the
desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of
wrath like the rest of mankind, but God being rich in mercy because
of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were
dead in our trespasses. made us alive together with Christ. By grace, you have been saved
and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly
places in Jesus Christ. I pray God has blessed our heart
with a remembrance of the gospel of Jesus Christ, our Lord and
Savior. Thank you.