All right, we ought to pay careful
heed, perk up our ears, and listen to what Paul is writing here.
Verse 9 and following, 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. As it is written, there is none
righteous, no, not one. There is none that understandeth. There is none that seeketh after
God. They're all gone out of the way.
They are together become unprofitable. There is none that doeth good,
no, not one. Their throat is an open supplicar. With their tongues they have
used deceit, the poison of ash. 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 way, and the way
of peace have they not known, there is no fear of God before
their eyes. Now, the subject before us requires,
I believe, a proper introduction, not only from the historical
standpoint of the development and the contention about these
doctrines in the historical setting, but also from the scriptural
standpoint and what they teach about the matter that is at hand
today, and what the Scripture teaches about God, about Christ,
about man, and about salvation. Now, there are two very different
systems of theology that have contended against one another,
and that over the centuries. One answers to the nickname of
Calvinism, or sovereign grace, or the doctrines of grace, the
sovereignty of God, or by the acronym of TULIP. The other system
of theology, if theology it may be called, is that of Arminianism. Now, the grace system, or the
Calvinistic system, has had such perils to proclaim it as John
Calvin, John Gill, Charles Spurgeon, John Owen, Thomas Goodwin, to
name a few, but also the Lord Jesus Christ and the Apostle
Paul. Yes, they taught these doctrines. On the other side, For the Armenians,
there have been the Wesley, Charles Finney, in our lifetime, Billy
Graham, and other great and big name preachers of our time. But the two positions are poles
apart in their belief and in their theology, and they disagree
on almost every major point of the Scripture. And especially
upon the five points are the doctrines of grace. That means
that one is wrong. One certainly has a wrong position,
for they are opposite. Calvinism holds up the sovereignty
of our God, the immutability and eternality of His will and
of His purpose, and that salvation is all of God, including the
faith by which we are enabled to believe, that grace is sovereign
and is sovereignly bestowed. And we go further that this grace,
this grace of salvation was purposed and was given in Jesus Christ
before the foundation of the world. We read that in 2 Timothy
1 and verse 9. Arminianism, on the other hand,
has erected what the wise old Puritan John Owen called, quote,
this Babel, unquote. And their denial, Owen pointed
out, of the two great doctrines of Scripture, one concerning
the doctrine of God, the other concerning the doctrine of man. Now, under the fall, man under
the fall, and concerning God, flatly and outrightly do they
deny the absolute sovereignty of God and the constant providential
oversight of the work of God's hands by Him. concerning man,
I'll just quote, one of the Puritans of old, the second aim of the
doctrine of Arminians is, quote, to clear human nature from the
heavy imputation of being sinful and corrupt, unquote. And this
is their aim and their goal. They deny original sin and its
demerit. They deny that all are corrupt
from their Adamic descent and by their natural birth. And I
believe, concerning those two points, that they have the same
motive in both of them, in not believing in sovereignty and
not holding to full depravity. And that is that they might preserve
their dagon-like idol of free will, so they can boast of being
free moral agents, and that the final work of salvation might
be ascribed under their free will, and their wise choices,
that they have made themselves to differ by the good choices
that they have made. And the Puritan Owen called this,
quote, a proud Luciferian endeavor, unquote. Now, earlier we mentioned
the Lord Jesus as being a preacher of what we know as the doctrines
of sovereign grace. I did not say that in jest or
as a joke, because the incarnate Son of God taught the sovereignty
of God. He taught both election and reprobation. He taught sovereign regeneration
and the necessity of a new birth, and that it is affected by a
sovereign work of the Spirit of God. You have that in John
chapter 3 and verses 1 through 12. pursuing that thought of
our Lord and His teaching, but we certainly hold Him up as the
consummate Teacher of Truth. But let's look at it a little
more particularly, that the Lord's Christ, the Lord Jesus, the Son
of God, the Minister of the New Covenant, Number one, our Lord
taught the doctrine of depravity and the enslaving nature of sin. John 8, verse 34 is one place. That which is born of the flesh
is flesh, said our blessed Lord in John 3, verse 6. It is flesh. That's all it can
be. That's all it ever will be. That's
all that it ever can progress. And it is not only interesting,
but it is important also that we take note of something. That
is, in the Lord's teaching with regard to what we call these
doctrines of grace, our Lord perhaps more often laid the emphasis,
or the heavier emphasis, upon man's inability. For example,
John 6, And verse 44, no man can come unto me unless the Father
draw him. He said again, in John 6 and
verse 65, no man can come unto me unless it were given unto
him by my Father. So the Lord taught the depravity
of man, the necessity of the new birth, but that it had to
have the sovereign operation of God. Our Lord, as I said,
laying the emphasis upon the inability of man. Coming along
to the second doctrine, the Lord openly taught the doctrine of
election. He often spoke of the elect. He spoke about those that were
chosen by God. He said in John 6.37, All that
the Father gives unto Me. And John 17, And verse 6, he
spoke of the men which you have given me out of the world. So our Lord said, for the sake
of the elect, certain things would come to pass in the providence
of God. Then thirdly, we notice, that
the Lord spoke about His death, His atonement, and His sacrifice
as particular, that He would lose none that the Father had
given unto Him, John 6, 38 and 39. He said that He died for His
sheep, John 10 and verse 14. He died for His friends, John
15 and verse 13. He died for many, Matthew 20
and 28 and 26 and 28. And He said to His disciples,
it is shed for you in Luke 22 and verse 20. Now, fourthly,
we find in the Scripture that our Lord taught the doctrine
of irresistible grace. All that the Father giveth me
shall come to me. John 6 and verse 37. He said, My sheep hear my voice,
and they follow me. John 10.4, 10.16, and 10.27, in that chapter about
the sheep. And lastly, but not leastly,
in the fifth place, our Lord taught the preservation and the
perseverance of the saints of God. that all that the Father
gave Him, He would lose nothing, but would keep it and would raise
it up in the last day. By the way, have you noticed
in the Scripture that sometimes one or two or three of the doctrines
of grace are in a verse of the Scripture? John 6.37 is such
a verse. Here there are three. of the
doctrines of grace that are summed up in this place. A. There is
election. All that the Father gives me. And then B. There is irresistible
grace. They shall come to me. And then C. There is preservation. I will in no wise cast out. There are three of them. In the
psalm, blessed is the man whom the Lord chooses and causes to
approach unto thee. I think that is Psalm 65. Now, this point is very easy
then to validate from the Scripture that the Lord Jesus Christ, a
teacher come from God, taught these things. And He taught them
openly and in public among the Jew who came to listen unto Him. In the ears of Abraham's offspring,
our Lord taught these five things that we are discussing. In their
synagogue, in their open air meeting, in a meeting with a
crowd, And He never appealed to any of those that He met,
whether individuals or group, whether a few or a mass. Our Lord never said, like some
do today, God loves you all and He has a wonderful plan for your
life. Now let me give a couple of instances
when the Jews took offense at hearing the sovereignty of God
taught by our Lord. In John chapter 6, verse 65 through
verse 66, the Lord said in verse 63 through 65, that the Spirit
must quicken and none could come to Him except unless, until it
were given unto them by the Father." Then look at verse 66, "...from
that time many left him, they went back, and walked with him
no more. They took offense at the sovereignty
of God, and they left." There's another place in Luke chapter
4, you'll find it in verse 24 through verse 28, when the Lord
referred to a couple of incidents from their history when God left
Jews in their misery and blessed a Gentile. And those people that
heard that went from wondering at the gracious words that proceeded
out of the mouth of our Lord, in verse 22, to being filled
with wrath down in verse 28, again, that is in Luke chapter
4. Have you read what the Lord said
in Matthew 11 and verse 25, when He thanked the Father for hiding
things from the wise and the prudent and revealing them unto
babes? He said, this was the Father's
good pleasure. Verse 26, and He adds this, that
only the Son can reveal the Father, And only the Father can reveal
the Son, because they reciprocally know one another unto perfection. Now, we have looked at some length
at the teaching of the Lord on these things, and I believe that
it ought to impress us when we find these things being taught
by our Lord. My point is this. These doctrines
were not formulated. They were not invented. by Augustine
or by Calvin or Luther or Spurgeon or Gill. They were not invented
by the Baptist or the Presbyterian or by the Reformer. They are
based upon the Scripture and more fully developed then by
the Apostle Paul in his epistle. And on top of that, volume after
volume, have been written by Spirit-led men over the centuries. There was a time when these doctrines
were embraced more widely and by many churches. But today the
leaven of Arminianism has leavened most of the lump, and men have
sewed the tears of Arminianism, and it seems that they are growing
up together, until in our day, in our time, the lie is now reckoned
as a truth and vice versa. And to make matters even worse,
there are some, far too many, who profess the doctrines of
grace, they don't understand them, and they don't preach them. We have far too many closet Calvinists
in our day. Now that said, we come at long
last to the first point of the doctrines of grace, that is,
total depravity. And we'll spend our time today,
our remaining time, on this doctrine of total depravity. Let me say,
I think it is fitting that this one should be the first. that
this should be the first stone laid in the system of theology. For the fall and the depravity
of the human race is a fundamental truth of the Scripture. It is
an inescapable truth of the Scripture, a doctrine not to be denied,
a doctrine not to be perverted, if we would learn what the remedy
from God is. If I might use a metaphor taken
from the medical field, the diagnosis must be made before the proper
remedy can be prescribed and applied. You have to know what's
wrong, you have to know what you're treating, and you have
to know what will treat it in order to be successful. So faulty
or deficient views of depravity will most certainly lead to false
cures to err here is to err at what it will take to save the
sinner from himself and from his sin. Faulty views of man's
condition will lead to faulty views of salvation. This is why those who hold a
free will in salvation have a mostly distorted view of the true extent
and nature of human depravity, which in turn distorts the way
to grace and salvation and changes the way they deal with people
and appeal unto them. So now let's expand upon what
we just said about free will. What John Owen called, the idol
himself, this great deity of free will, unquote. Number one,
to maintain free will is to have no right concept of the full
measure of human depravity. To say that man in the fall has
retained a free will that can bring him to God or to Christ
is to miss the full depth of depravity. Number two, to maintain
free will is to have very inadequate views of the salvation of God,
the saving of the soul. So I think that we could use
the measure of our Lord on the matter of free will. We use the
measure of Christ in Luke 16 and verse 15. That which is highly
esteemed among men is an abomination in the sight of God. That which
men love, and most of them love, and most of them follow and adore,
is bound to be an abomination in the sight of God. In Luke
chapter 6 and verse 26, that which all speak well of, that
which is popular with men, is to be very closely considered
and monitored. The psalmist said, chapter 49,
verse 13, their way is folly, yet their posterity approve of
their saying. In short, free will is too popular
and too much espoused by men to be of God. Nearly every section
of Christendom carries about this daggone stump an idol. Yea, we go even further. Free
will is religious humanism. Free will is nothing but religious
humanism. It is man saving himself or bringing
himself out of his dilemma. Now, let's say a few things.
about the doctrine of total depravity and the relationship of it to
the other four doctrines of grace, how they relate, how they so
sweetly coalesce, and how they complement one the other. We've already said it was fitting
that depravity should be the first stone laid, since in view
of man's depravity he would never savingly choose God or Christ. But God chose or elected some
in Christ before the foundation of the world. Again, being sinners,
being chosen, we need an effective redemption, one that actually
saves. And having been chosen, having
been redeemed, they must be affectionately called. They cannot come on their
own. They cannot make themselves willing. It must be done in the day of
his power, and all of that being done, they must then be preserved
and persevere, and they are preserved in Christ Jesus. We read that
in Jude 1, and kept by the power of God. Now, our state by nature
is such that nothing but sovereign, effectual grace will save us. from our sin. And then let's
raise the question, well, what then is the state of man by nature? Let's look at that for a while
in our study. To answer that, we must consider
the fall of our first parents and the fall of the race in them. That the sin and the fall of
Adam and Eve is literal, biblical, it is written up in Genesis chapter
3. And then we speak of what we'll
call our seminal connection unto Adam and Eve, particularly unto
Adam. Our seminal connection unto the
first pair. That the whole race was, or is,
seminally derived from Adam and Eve. Remember Acts 17 and verse
26. God has made of one blood all
nations of men for to dwell on the face of the earth. All of
the races, however diverse, are yet descended from that one blood. I Corinthians 15.22. In Adam
all die. Romans 5 and verse 12. By one man's sin entered the
world and death by sin. And Paul writes in 1 Corinthians
15 and verse 49, we have borne the image of the earthly. He's talking about Adam, the
first and the second Adam there in that place. Now, what was
the case with Adam? Well, Ecclesiastes 7.29, God
made man upright, but they have sought out many inventions. He was made in the likeness and
the image of God, Genesis 1 and verse 26, but sinned and fell
under the power and the dominion of sin. Now, at this point, I'd
like to plant a seed in our mind, which is this, that we are not
looking at individuals only right now. either with regard to Adam
and Eve or their far distant prodigy way off in their future. There are millions and millions
of individuals who have lived, who are yet living on this terrestrial
wall called Earth. But all of them, all of us, are
partakers of human nature. And that from one fountain or
one blood, Adam and Eve. Now, what do we mean by human
nature? It is a phrase that you sometimes
hear even in the secular world. You hear people all the time
say, well, that's just human nature, or you know human nature. Now human nature did not evolve
over a course of time, and it did not come up from a lower
form by the process of evolution, but human nature is the very
creation of God. We are taught in early Genesis
that God made the first man a body and that He made that body out
of the dust of the ground. and that God breathed into him
the breath of life, and Scripture said, and man became a living
soul. That man's nature and makeup
consist of a material part, the body, and a rational soul, which
of course is separated at death according unto James. that human
nature furthermore exists in both the original and in the
fallen form, and it exists in two genders, male and female. Now there's an ongoing argument.
We won't take it up this morning because It is a sermon and a
study in itself among expositors. And that is whether man is dichotomous
or trichotomous. That is, whether he consists
in two parts or in three. The other argument, whether the
soul comes by direct creation or by traducianism, we don't
have time to look at that today. But our present concern is twofold. Number one, that human nature
was created by God, was at first upright, and without any manifest
depravity, but was corrupted, or became corrupted, by sin and
Adam and Eve's sin. Their very nature became corrupt. Sin invaded into their very being. and they became defiled. Furthermore,
this human nature, as we're speaking of it in totality, is capable
of existing in four states or stages. The original, The fallen,
the regenerate state of grace, and the glorified state that
is to come. And each of those are worthy
of a study in itself. But secondly, this corrupt nature
is passed along by natural procreation to every offspring of the offspring
of the offspring of Adam and Eve, so that we all, like David
our brother did say in Psalm 51 and verse 5, were shapen in
iniquity and conceived in sin. Now, a poisonous fountain cannot,
will not, and does not send forth sweet water. An evil and a corrupt
tree, corrupt in its stalk and in its root, cannot bring forth
good fruit, nor can fallen parents propagate an upright, righteous
offspring." That's why the question is raised, how can He be clean
that is born of a woman in Job 25 and verse 4? For the whole nature is corrupt
in every part and in every faculty. I shall name them in the mind,
the heart, the understanding, the conscience, the will. Yes,
the will. and the affection and the body
is called a body of sin in the scripture. And that sin works
in and through all of its members. Now we know, we see, that total
depravity is a hard saying. Who can hear it? who is there
that can fully hear and receive the doctrine of total depravity. I'll go further and say it may
be among the most offensive doctrine and truth of Scripture to the
proud, haughty, self-righteous generation that have espoused
the strange gospel or doctrine of high self-esteem in our day. We have been told for years,
years we have been told that low self-esteem is what leads
people to become prostitutes and drug addicts and enter into
one bad relationship after another and to become withdrawn and anti-social
because they do not see themselves as good and worthy. In other
words, Low self-esteem, they say, is what puts people in the
gutter. But high self-esteem, as it is
preached today, is just another name for pride and secular humanism. Christ crucified is an offense
to the proud Jew boasting in his Abrahamic descent. So total
depravity is an insult unto men who see themselves as good and
decent. Thus, because total depravity
is such an offense unto the human family, to tell them of that
There are certain inventions that have been brought forth
to circumvent or to lessen or to lighten the blow of original
sin. First of all, I'll name a couple.
First of all, one of the world's largest denominations teaches
that water sprinkled on an infant's brow takes away from that one
original sin, and quote, puts grace into my soul for the first
time, unquote. And that an infant who dies without
baptism goes to a place called limbo. And right now, I'm quoting
directly Word for word from Coogan's catechism, quote, as far as we
know, babies in limbo will never go to heaven because they died
without grace in their souls, unquote. That is, they died unbaptized. Secondly, there is another large
part of Christendom And perhaps we would lay this at the feet
of what we might call evangelical Arminians, as we call them. They hold to an age of accountability
to be invoked in the case of young children to delay the onset
of depravity and of guilt. Thirdly, there are others who
reckon their children in the covenant because of believing
parents, as did the Jew because of being Abraham's seed. Thus,
in dealing with the doctrine of depravity, we consider first,
not first, the deeds and the acts of sin That's not our starting
point. Actual sins are not our starting
point. The first thing to consider is
the corruption of nature and what is also called original
sin. For it is the corruption of nature
that gives rise or gives birth if we may say it that way, to
actual sin. It is the corruption of nature. Corrupt nature is the breeding
ground for all sinful acts, deeds, thoughts, and motive. Did not
our Lord Jesus say, and that in Mark chapter 7 and verse 21,
from within, out of the heart, Our Lord said, out of the heart
proceed everything from evil thoughts to murder in that passage
of the Scripture. He names 13 different sins in
that one particular place. And then He repeats down in the
23rd verse, All of these come from within, out of the heart,
out of the inner man. And why not? Jeremiah 17 and
verse 9. The heart is deceitful above
all things, and desperately wicked, and who can know it? Even with
Adam and Eve, and even with the angels that kept not their first
place, Their hearts were first disinclined from God, then inclined
toward their respective disobedience. Their sin commenced not in their
sinful deed, but within them in the corruption of their inward
part. Out of their inward corruption,
therefore, flowed the acts and the deeds and the thoughts and
the words that are sinful in our time. And not only that,
but you see in Scripture, the early onset and manifestation
of depravity is set forth in the Old Testament Scripture very
clearly. In addition to that passage from
David, in Psalm 51 and verse 5, I was conceived in sin, shapen
in iniquity. There's Psalm 58, verse 3 through
5. It says this, the wicked are
estranged from the womb. They go astray as soon as they
are born speaking lies. Isaiah 48 and verse 8 speaks
of such as were called a transgressor from the womb. In Genesis 6 and
verse 5, God saw the wickedness of man was great in the earth,
that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only
evil continually. The margin has it, the whole
imagination, the purposes and the desire is all included. What's more, in Genesis chapter
8 and verse 21, even after the flood, God said, following Noah's
sacrifice, that he would never again curse the earth for man's
sake for, or even though, the imagination of man's heart is
evil from his youth." Early does sin begin to work. Early does
sin begin to manifest itself in every individual. Now, to
follow up on that thought that the Old Testament teaches depravity,
let's come to a text in Romans chapter 3 that we initially read,
verse 10 through verse 18. You will notice, if you look
carefully, and cross-reference and study that the passage is
mainly a collection of Old Testament Scripture. A collection of Old
Testament Scripture quoted by Paul to prove his point in verse
9 of Romans chapter 3, which is, both Jews and Gentiles alike,
quote, are all under sin. unquote, that the whole human
family, Jew and Gentile, is corrupt. and lives under the dominion
of sin. That Jewish nature is alike defiled
with the Gentile. That depravity is universal. As it is written here, and Paul
quotes, there is not so much as one righteous person. None that understand the things
of God, none that seek after God apart from saving grace,
none that do good, says the apostle. There is no fear of God before
their eyes, and this is evident, as Paul shows in the later verses,
by their conduct and behavior. They are violent. They shed blood. They don't fear God. They tear
one another into pieces. This is evident by their conduct
and by their behavior. Now, in support of this, we'll
not turn there, but all these verses are referred to by Paul
in Romans 3, 10 through 18. Psalm 14, 1-3. Psalm 53, 1-3.
Psalm 5, 9. Get it right in a minute. Psalm 140, 3. Psalms 10, and verse 7, quoting heavily
as you see from the psalm. And then part of it is from Isaiah,
chapter 59, verse 7 and verse 8. And the part about the fear
of God before their eyes is from Psalm 36 and verse 1. Now, I repeat, All of these are
quotations out of the oracles of God that had been committed
unto the Jew, as Paul said in the first part of Romans chapter
3. So, let us imitate Paul and confirm
doctrine by Scripture. Whatever we preach, make sure
we have Scripture and that we're opening the Scripture and that
that truth is sustained by the Scripture and by the Word of
God. Then, let's make a point in winding
down our first study, and that is that sin and depravity can
only be properly defined in relationship unto the Holy God and to the
Word of God Sin is what God said sin is. Sin is sin because God
says it is and sees it as sin. And we need to realize that sin
is first and foremost against God and is a transgression of
His law. Therefore, only He can forgive
it. only He can provide a proper
remedy. And as stated, sin comes out
of the corrupt nature of man. Not only are all depraved, but
none can come to God in their own will, strength, or freedom. They are dead in trespasses and
in sin, and they cannot raise themselves out of spiritual deadness. They are blind and they cannot
open their eyes. Their heart is closed against
God and they cannot open their own heart. The Lord opens hearts
as He did Lydia in Acts chapter 16. Now, let me offer further
proof in closing. Every day, every day brings multiple
proof and evidence of human depravity. Look at the news, multiple murders,
robberies every day, home invasion, car theft, bank robbers, child
murder, rape, incest, adultery, crooked police, corrupt preachers,
homosexual priests, calling evil good, and lying, traitorous politicians
everywhere we look and hear. The proof of depravity is right
before our very eyes. but yet how few there are that
have eyes to see it and that still deny the depravity of the
race. What can we say but none so blind
as those who will not or cannot see. That's all we can say about
it. When God brings us, when God
calls us, when God brings us to his saving mercy. He makes
known unto us our depravity. He shows us our vileness and
our unworthiness. and bestowing His grace upon
us. And how thankful we are for that. Any who have learned of salvation
have learned of their depravity. And we learn it all the days
of our life. Like Paul, wretched man that
I am.