As we've learned in Ephesians, especially chapter 2, we, without Christ, were dead
in our sins. We were dead. We were lost. We
were without hope in the world. We were without God in the world. We were separated and alienated
from the covenant of promise. But now, we who are in Christ
are made new. We are a new creation. We are
a new creature. We are the elect of God. We are
the adopted ones. We are the church, the body of
Christ, the redeemed. And the cause of that We are
no longer walking in the way of the Gentiles or the way of
the lost and the futility and the usefulness of our mind, which
says, in a nutshell, that the flesh and everything that it
desires is good when God says it's not. One of the core things that need
to be brought to our attention every day is the necessity of
the gospel because of the deprivation of the man. Now, what does that
mean? Man is so wicked, so vile, so lost, so sinful, so evil,
so passionless, so devoted to wicked pursuits and godless lives
that God, in order to forgive, had to become man and punish
himself so that he could forgive man. The gospel is necessary
because of the righteousness of God in comparison to the wickedness
of man. Now, there is much to be said
about the doctrine of sin. Well, what in the world, doctrine
of sin? Yes, the word doctrine means
teaching. The word orthodox means right opinion. So we want a right
opinion of what the Scripture teaches about these things. That's
why we call it doctrines. It's basically teachings. So
the Scripture has teachings. The Scripture has teachings on
the creation of the world. The Scripture has teachings on
the creation of man. The Scripture has teachings on the essence
of God, His holiness, His omnipotence, His omniscience, His power. His
glory, His desire, His passion, His hands, how they work, what
He's done, what He desires, His will. And yet there is more than
has ever been revealed that is hidden from us in Deuteronomy
29. And those are for the Lord alone.
But what we do know is that The teachings of Scripture teach
us who God is and the whole idea of what Scripture is given to
us for is that we may see God if we've been given eyes to see
Him. And then we may see that our nature is far from Him and
therefore we are due His judgment. We deserve every ounce of His
judgment and His wrath because we are sinful. In the world,
in the last, I don't know, I just take a stab. 125 years in America. I won't say the world. A new philosophy has formed amongst
evangelical. That means people who believe
the gospel, the word evangel, which means good news, which
we get the word gospel, which is a conjunction from Old English
called God speak. And then it became God's spell.
Now it's gospel. That's where the word comes from. So the good news of God, the
evangel, is what an evangelistic person is. So the evangelical
church is one who believes in the gospel of Jesus Christ by
statement. But what we've seen is that those
who hold to the doctrines of salvation by faith alone, by
grace alone, from Christ alone, things of that nature, By method
and practice, we have changed some things. So we say we believe
one thing on paper, but we do another. It's like putting $1,000
in your bank account and not spending any money, and in the
first month you get a statement. You see you have $1,000 in there.
And every month that the statement comes, you just throw it away.
You don't even open it. You just throw it away. Because the statement
that you have here says $1,000. But you're writing checks all
day. You're doing debits. And you've got a dollar left.
And you go to Chick-fil-A, or to Crispy Chick, or to Crispy
Brown, or to Mrs. Rogers, or to Taco Bell, and
you get a 99 cent burrito, with tax, it's a dollar six, and it
denies it, declines it. And you go, what? I believed
I had a thousand dollars, that's what I said, I believe that's
what's on paper, that's what's stated. But you lived as though you had
more than that. You lived as though you believed
that thousand dollars was just going to stay there. Now, that
might not be a good analogy, but I think you get what I'm
saying. What I'm saying is that oftentimes we say we believe
one thing, but we act as though we don't. Our beliefs and the
doctrines that we hold to must attack and affirm our actions. That's why the Scripture is so
hard on holiness and repentance and belief and faith and trust.
We must always stay the course. We must do it together. Corporately,
we glorify God. Individually, not so much. We
should and we strive for that, but the best way and God's main
purpose in building the church is that His glory is reflected,
that He sees Himself. And so depravity, as we talk
about that, the word depraved, how can you define that? Most
of us in the room and most of us listening to what I'm saying
today would define depraved. We have people in mind that are
depraved. And we think about those vile people who do vile
things to innocent people. And we think, well, those are
depraved people. And we're right. They're depraved people. Or we
think, well, I know who are the depraved. Those are the ones
who are sitting in jail. Those are the bad, hardcore. Those
are depraved people. Those are depraved people. And
we're right. Oh, we know those people that are living in sin
and those are depraved people. Yeah, yeah, we're right. But
we fail to walk as we brush our teeth and see the depravity in
our own eyes. And we compare what the news shows us at 6 o'clock
every night and say, well, those people are depraved, but not
me. I'm not depraved. I'm not wicked at the core. I'm
a pretty good guy and I'm living morally. Nobody's going to arrest
me because I've done nothing wrong. It doesn't matter. We're
still depraved. So the depravative man is better
known today, and theologians have started, and the depravity
of man basically is, and I'll show you what Scripture says
in this, and I have got a lot of Scripture. I'm telling you
right now, you will not write it all down. It's impossible.
And if you want a copy of these, I will get them to you. I wanted
to take a survey, a surface survey of every bit of this throughout
the entire Bible. So I've got Old Testament, New
Testament. I've got some proof texts for every point that I
have, and I have 14 points, and it's 10 pages of notes. So just
get ready. It's going to be fast. Somebody's
going to try to buy something up here. It's going to feel like
an option. But what I want you to see is that the depravity
of man, what is more commonly known today as the total corruption
or the radical corruption of the human condition, is an essential
doctrine that the church must understand. Because out of corruption,
out of sin, then what God has done in Christ then becomes good
news. Without it, it's frivolous. Does that make sense? So if we're
not wicked, if we're not sinful, then why did God have this elaborate
plan to save us? It makes no sense. We have to
be sinful for the gospel to make sense. It's not good news for
God to just come and do something cool and we still go to hell
or that he did something cool and died as atonement or as a
substitution for sin when we're not really sinful. That was just
dumb. So I want you to see. First and foremost, there's a
lot of things. I'll try to make the points clear, but I probably
won't. So just listen to it again. Depravity is not how God created
humanity. Understand that. Depravity is
not how God created humanity. But depravity is seen in that
men think they are basically good. So you say, well, God didn't
create me wicked. No, he surely did not. God created
Adam perfectly righteous, upright, walking with him in perfect,
perfect, perfect relationship. And Eve the same way. And then
they rebelled against God and then severed that relationship
so everyone born of them from that day forward now is part
of the race of cursed peoples who are sinners at the core of
our DNA. God created man upright. But man rebelled, and because
of that, death reigns in the life of humanity. Well, don't
look. Just listen. Ecclesiastes 7.29
says this, See, this alone I found, that God made man upright, but
they have sought out many schemes, many plans of their own. In Romans
5.12, Paul says, Therefore, just as sin came into the world through
one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men
because all sinned. And of course, we understand
what Paul says later in that verse. But then, if death reigns
through one man, then how much more amazingly will life reign
in the one man Christ? That's that imputed righteousness.
For as by one man's disobedience, the many were made sinners, so
by the one man's obedience, many will be made righteous. I want
you to understand point really number one is that Corruption
or depravity is a total, radical corruption. Depravity is a complete
corruption of the human person. It's not a partial. We aren't
just sinners in our actions. We're not just sinners in our
thoughts. We're not just sinners with our mouths. We're not just
sinners with our hands. We're just sinners with our whole being. Everything
we are flows out of sin. That's what the Bible teaches
us. Unfortunately, many people throughout
history have come to the place where they go, well, man's pretty
good. Man's pretty good. I know there are a lot of wicked
people out there, but I'm the exception. Well, friends, there
is no exception. We see depravity in the whole
person, and not just the whole person, but every whole person.
Every person that's ever been born of man and woman is corrupt,
is depraved, is radically corrupt. And so in that, if we say, well,
I think I'm okay. Then we haven't read the Scripture.
I want you to understand too. I'm going to get to a place where
we start to understand that the Scripture says that we must see
God and we must seek Him and we must repent and we must believe
in Him. And then I want you to see that
sometimes what we do is we believe in a God that we've created.
We've either created Him in our own hearts and minds based on
just our human sinful nature, our corruptive nature, or we've
created Him based on what pastors have taught us, who learn from
their pastors, who learn from their pastors, and trickle down
the lane. It doesn't get any better. It gets worse. And we've learned
from TV evangelists, or we've learned from books, or we've
learned from radio shows, or we've learned from big corporate
whatever, or we've learned from whatever. We've learned who God
is, but that God that we've learned may not be the God of the Bible.
And if He's not the God of the Bible, then what you'll see today
is you'll begin to start feeling very uncomfortable with what
I'm about to preach. Because you'll see the true picture of
who God is in the Bible, and you'll say, well, that ain't
my God. But if He's not your God, you're lost. Well, that's dogmatic. Absolutely.
Because the Scripture says very well, even out of the mouth of
Jesus Christ, He says this is eternal life in John 17, that
you know God the Father and the Son of Jesus Christ whom you
sent. So if you don't know the one true God, then you don't
have eternal life. And if you think you know the
one true God, and it's different than what the apostles teach
and what the prophets teach and what God Himself teaches, then
you don't know the one true God. You know a God that is an idol,
that is not a true God, that is going to be cast into hell
with you. So depravity is radical corruption.
It's seen when we think, I am an exception. The very nature
that people think that they're an exception to depravity shows
that they're depraved. They're not even able to see
that they have sin. In Psalm 143, verse 2, enter
not into judgment with your slave, for no one living is righteous
before you. In Romans 3.23, for all have
sinned and fall short of the glory of God. In 2 Chronicles
6.36, if they sin against you, for there is no one who does
not sin, and you are angry with them, and give them to an enemy
so that they are carried away captive to a land far or near.
In Isaiah 53.6, it says, all we like sheep have gone astray.
We have turned everyone to his own way. And that includes who
we think God is. How we think salvation is affected.
And the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. But that's
the gospel. It's that the Lord has laid on
Christ the iniquity of us all. Who are those all? Israel, the
people of God, which includes the church, according to Romans
9, 10 and 11. Those who are in Christ are Israel, not those
who are Abraham's offspring. In Romans 3, 9-12, it says this,
what then? Are we Jews, Paul speaking, any
better off? Not at all. For we have already
charged that both Jews and Greeks are under sin. As it is written,
none is righteous, no, not one. No one understands. No one seeks
for God. All have turned aside. Together
they have become worthless. No one does good, not even one.
There are no exceptions to this. 1 John says, but if we say we
have no sin, we've deceived ourselves and the truth is not in us. And
then he goes on to say, if we say we have not sinned, we make
God to be a liar. We make Christ to be a liar in
the Word, and His Word is not in us. Jesus says, if you abide
in Me and My Word abides in you, you will bear much fruit. If
you are in Christ, then His Word abides in you, for it is in His
Word that you came to faith. Not in the words of man. Not
into a man coming to give you the direction. You don't need
a man, you need the God-man, Jesus Christ, through the Scriptures,
through a right understanding of the Word. Matter of fact,
I believe it's safer to go to a hotel and get the Bible out
of the bedside table and come to faith than it is to meet some
churches. I believe it's safer for your soul, that it's safer
for your heart, for your bitterness, for your spiritual growth. So depravity is seeing and thinking
that someone's an exception. Depravity is also seeing and
thinking that man is basically good. We have this problem all
over the place. Everywhere you go. Teachers,
they teach children. Y'all are just wonderful people.
You're great people. You have the world at your fingertips.
They teach all this stuff. They teach this stuff. And you
think, what are you talking about? I remember being taught that as a kid. And
then you leave school and you're like, man, I am high on the world.
I'm going to be the moon. I'm not just going to go to the
moon. I'm going to be the moon. And every night, people are going
to look at me and go, That's how I feel when I left school.
And then Grandma, she'd say, well, you're nothing but a little
sinner. I'm going to be the moon. Well, you're going to be a sinful
moon. You're going to be ugly. It wasn't
quite like that. But we teach our children that
they're sinners. And they ought to behave. If they are in Christ,
they ought to behave as though they're in Christ. They ought
to have the power to overcome sin. You train your children as though
they are in the covenant of God. And one day, if they reject Him
and walk away, that's not your problem. You pray that God would
hold them and sustain them. Don't pray for your children
to come to a point of decision. Teach them to choose every day
to serve the Lord. Teach them to choose every day to repent
of their sin. Teach them that Christians live this way. And
if they depart from the faith, they depart from a faith that
is foundational, not ignorant. In Mark 7, verse 21 through 23,
it says, For from within, out of the heart of man comes evil
thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery." Did
you hear that? From the heart of man, from within, coveting,
wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness,
all these evil things come from within and they defile a person. For there is no truth in their
mouth. Their inmost self is destruction. Their throat is an open grave
and they flatter with their tongue. Psalm 5 verse 9. The nature of
depravity is that it affects the whole person as a being and
it requires judgment. The word heresy. You hear it
a lot, especially if you talk to me much. I like to use it.
It's just really cool sounding. That's heretical. That's heresy.
Oh, that sounds dangerous. Are you taking a pill for that?
Heresy. What heresy is, is defined as
a belief or an opinion that does not align or that is contrary
to orthodoxy. And orthodoxy means what? Right
opinion. Or correct. And so, also, heresy is something
that is against the normal right or teaching of the truth here
in the Word of God, but then also against the historical acceptance
of the churches throughout the ages. The apostles believed the
same thing, that the 2nd century church, that the 3rd century
all of them up, and then you see what happened, and then the Reformation
had to take place, and look how far we've come in 500 years.
We have come so far that reform needs to take place again in
evangelical churches. Can you believe that, that we
need a reform for the Reformation? So when you see Grace Truth Church
saying we are a reformed church, I think it better would be we
are a reforming church. We're always reforming back to
the first century. We want to be like the church
that God has ordained. Not necessarily in method, but
in mission and in focus and in purpose and in teaching and in
principle. We don't want to get away from
that. We don't want to look at our culture and go, let's do
something that way. But what we want to do is we
want to give honor and glory to Christ so that His manifold
wisdom is seen, not ours. Depravity is seen when we think
man is basically good. And to say that he's basically
good is heresy. It's heresy. Let me give you
several ways. One, two, three, four, five. Let me give you five ways that
man is not inherently good according to the Word of God. The first
way is this, that the heart itself is wicked. I hear it all the
time. Well, Pastor, I just believe
in my heart. You do? You believe in your heart what?
Well, I just feel in my heart. What do you feel in your heart?
What did you eat last night for supper? What did your husband
say to you this morning? What did your son say to you
this morning? What did your wife say to you yesterday afternoon?
What was that email that you got from your boss? So you're
feeling your heart, you need to do this, do that. Show me
in the Bible where God has directed you in this way. Show me in the
Scripture in your daily passion for the Word of God. Show me
where God has moved you. Well, I just feel it in my heart.
Well, you know what? The Bible says in Jeremiah 17,
that the heart is deceitful above all things. So your heart is
lying to you. It's lying to you. It's telling you what the flesh
wants, not what God wants. It is desperately sick. Who can
understand it? Who can know it? I'll tell you
who knows the heart. Jesus knows the heart. Jesus
knows the heart of man. In John 2, verses 24-26, somewhere
around in there, no one had to tell Him what was in the heart
of man. He knew what was in man. And those were the same men who believed
in Him, believed in His name because of the miracles that
He did. And He didn't believe in them. They had a profession of faith
and they chose to follow Him, but He didn't choose to allow
them to see Him. And so their decision to follow Christ was
an unaffectual decision. It was just as though I wanted
to change shoes. Great. The heart is wicked. In Ecclesiastes
9, Solomon writes, this is an evil in all that is done under
the sun, that the same event happens to all. Also, the hearts
of the children of man are full of evil. And madness is in their
hearts while they live. And after that, they go to the
dead. In Matthew 15, it says, for out of the heart come evil
thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual morality and false witness and
slander. So the heart is wicked. So people aren't inherently good
because the heart is wicked. People aren't inherently good because
the mind is worthless. The head is worthless. The mind,
the brain. Listen to the Scripture in Ephesians
4. We've already heard this. Now this I say and testify unto
the Lord, that ye must no longer walk as the Gentiles do in the
futility of their minds. They are darkened in their understanding,
alienated from the life of God because of the what? Ignorance
that is in them due to the hardness of heart. Remember when I preached
that about four weeks ago? We're not inherently good because
our heart is wicked, because our mind is worthless, and also
because our will, our determination, is enslaved. The third thing. We think that we have free choice.
And we do have free choice. We can choose anything we want to
choose. But our choice is bound. It's bound by biology. It's bound
by physics. It's bound by science. It's bound
by the laws of nature. We can't fly, but we can get
in something to fly. But then in that, it's still
bound by what we can do and accomplish in that flight. Even a bird can't
fly indefinitely. It must stop and eat and rest.
So everything is bound to some restriction. So there's no such
thing as an absolute free will. You say, well, I can do whatever
I want. Really? OK, what does the Scripture say about that?
Say, I can do whatever I want, or I have the freedom to do whatever
I want, then believe in Jesus Christ. Believe in Jesus Christ
without the glory of God's grace. Believe in Jesus Christ without
an effectual rebirth given by the Holy Spirit of God. Go ahead.
Believe. Put your complete trust in Him.
You say, well, I did that. I came to faith in Jesus Christ.
Did you? See, free choice to see or believe in God affects
nothing in God's favor toward us. Just because we believe and
just because we choose doesn't mean that we have eternal life.
Many people, as a matter of fact, more people in the New Testament
narratives believed and then walked away than believed and
persevered. Perseverance is the effectual
proof that we are indeed in faith. And those who are in faith, who
persevere, fail, fail, fail, try, try, try, succeed, fail,
and we just have to hold on to what? The faithfulness of God
in Jesus Christ. Not our decision to follow Him.
It's sort of like saying a thief that gets caught stealing. And
he's so upset and he says, I'm sorry that I stole and I give
back the merchandise. And then he goes to court and
he goes to prison anyway. But wait a minute, I gave it back.
I chose to give back. But you still broke the law and
the law says you must go to the penitentiary. So you're still,
even though you chose to do something different about the sin that
you committed, that choice has no effect on the judgment on
your life. That's the same thing that happens when we, in our
own minds and will, say, I'm going to follow Jesus. And most
of the people who say that want to follow Jesus because they
have a fear of hell, a fear of judgment, and they want to be
at peace when they lay down at night, when they reflect on the
sins that they've committed in their hearts. That's why they make decisions.
And so then they rest accomplished in what they've decided rather
than what Christ has done. That thief going to prison. It
does not give restitution just because he's sorry and he returns
what he stole because he still broke the law. And once you break
the law, once we break the law, we're a lawbreaker and the judgment
is there. Free choice does not affect salvation. It just provides a different
path on this earth to the same end, judgment. Grace, on the
other hand, affects salvation. Grace affects salvation. It sets
the will of the unredeemed to become redeemed. It sets the
will of those who were dead to be alive. It sets the will of
the redeemed in bondage, no longer to sin and to flesh, but in bondage
to righteousness. See? We think we're free. There is nowhere in Scripture
that teaches we're free, even in Christ. Well, the Son sets
you free. You're free indeed. Free to what? Free to be a slave
to righteousness. Because we want to be righteous.
We want to walk holy. Because we don't want judgment. But only God can make effectual
will long after Him. In 2 Peter, well, John 8, 34,
Jesus says, Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who practices
sin is a slave to sin. And 2 Peter 2, 19 says, They
promised them freedom, but they themselves are slaves of corruption
for whatever overcomes a person to that he is enslaved. And Titus
3, 3 says, For we ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, led
astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing our days
in malice and envy, hated by others and hating one another.
In Galatians 4, 8 and 9, it says, formally, when you did not know
God, you enslaved those that by nature are not gods. But now
that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God,
big difference, how can you turn your back again to the weak and
the worthless, elementary principles of the world, whose slaves you
want to be once more? So our will is enslaved, and
our actions are perverted. That's the next point. Our actions
are perverted apart from Christ. In Romans chapter 1, you know
what that. Therefore, God gave them up to the lusts and the
passions of their hearts, to impurity, to the dishonoring
of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth
about God for a lie. And they worshipped what? The
creation rather than the Creator. For this reason, God gave them
up to dishonorable passions. Women exchanged natural relations
for those that are contrary to nature. And men likewise gave
up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion
for one another. Men committing shameless acts with men and receiving
in themselves the due penalty of their error. And in Romans, excuse me, in
Ephesians 2, 3, among those among whom we all once lived in the
passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of our body and
the desires of our mind. And in that time were by nature
children of wrath like the rest of humanity. Therefore, the human
will toward God and toward salvation is worthless. So what are the
effects of depravity? The fifth thing, because man
is sinful to the core, he can do nothing. to effect salvation. He can do nothing to be right
before God. How can a man be right before God? He can't, except
God grant him justification. Justification means you're guilty
as charged, but you stand forgiven in front of the judge because
someone else has taken what you owe and rightfully paid for it.
And the only man that can pay for the sins of other men is
a man who is absolutely perfect before God. God doesn't take
a sacrifice of impurity. It's impossible. So the effects
of depravity, first, is that man can do nothing. This is why
we need the Gospel. This is why we need the good
news. That in our helpless depravity
and in our death, God saves us. Otherwise, we'd be giving God
good news. Hey God, guess what? I come. Aren't you happy? Didn't
you want another one? Aren't you glad I came? Sometimes
we feel like we're a gift to God. Look at me. This is good
for you now, God. I've decided to hear you. I've
decided to obey. I've decided. Well, I'll be honest with you,
whether you come to faith or not, it's all for the glory of
God, either in judgment over your sin or mercy and forgiveness
in Christ Jesus. Christ is Lord and He does rule.
Man, therefore, cannot do what cannot be done. He cannot repent
and believe and be holy. Let's look at some texts that
prove this. Jeremiah 13, 23 says, can the Ethiopian change his
skin or the leopard change his spots? I love this rhetoric. Jeremiah asked this question.
And then he writes. Then also, you can do good who
are accustomed to do evil. If the Ethiopian can change his
spot, his skin and the leopard can change his spots, then you
can do good. If not, we cannot do good. We cannot do good who
are accustomed to evil. In 1st Samuel 24, as the proverb
of the ancients says, out of the wicked comes wickedness.
But then God says, my hand shall not stand against you. Matthew
7, a healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a diseased
tree bear good fruit. Matthew 12, you brood of vipers,
how can you speak good when you're full of evil? For out of the
abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. The good person, out
of his good treasure, brings forth good. And the evil person,
out of his evil treasure, brings forth evil. And Romans 8, 7 says,
For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile, it's enemy
to God, for it does not submit to God's law. Indeed, it cannot
submit to God's law. Now Titus chapter 1, verse 15
and 16. It says, To the pure, All things
are pure. But to the defiled and unbelieving,
nothing is pure. But both their minds and their
consciousness are defiled. You hear that? To the pure, all things are pure.
But to the defiled and the unbelieving, nothing is pure. So to the defiled
and to the unbelieving, Their minds and their consciousness
are defiled. They profess. How does this look?
Look at verse 16. They profess to know God. These
aren't atheists he's talking about. These are professing Christians.
They profess to know God, but they deny Him by their works.
They are detestable, disobedient, and unfit for any good work. And as you know, Paul's argument,
to the Thessalonians as well as to the Romans. These are vessels
prepared for destruction. They deny Him by their works.
What does that mean? Well, most of us would say, well,
they're fakers. No, they think they're the real
deal. These people who profess to know God, they think they're
the real deal. They're the ones who are always in church, who
are serving, who are singing, who are teaching, who are cutting
the grass and cleaning the windows and praying with people. Not
all of them, but they will be amongst them. They will be amongst
us who are the people of God. But they deny God by their works. What are some of these works?
Let's just think about them for a moment. The works of self-glory. Here's
some of the works that deny God. The works of self-glory. Thinking
that I'm good enough to do something for God. I'm going to give this
to God. I'm going to do this for God.
I'm going to do this, and I'm good enough to do it. This is
going to make God happy. That type of mindset. That type
of mentality. It's self-glory. We deny God
by works of self-effectual redemption. That's what I call it. And what
does that mean? That means when I can say to
myself when I lay down at night in the quiet of my mind, I came
to God. I got right with God. I made
the right choice. That's denying the work of God.
That's denying God. It's denying the power. The appearance
of Godliness, Paul says to Timothy, but denying its power. We deny
God when... by works of boasting. Boasting
in obedience, boasting in repentance. All this, well, I don't do that,
and I don't do this, and I don't do that, and I don't do this,
and I do that, and I do this, and I live this way, and they
live that way, and man, I'm glad I'm not like them. And all this
we boast. We boast, well, I know I'm a
believer because I did this, and I know I'm going to heaven
because I did this, and we go and we boast. We boast, and we
boast in our own hearts, and after a while we believe it.
And we deny God. We deny God by works of confidence
in the flesh. Well, I know I can overcome that.
I'm strong in the flesh. We deny God by works of the confidence
of the mind or the will. Even as redeemed people, our
will is set to be a slave to righteousness, but our flesh
is still corrupt. We aren't made whole. We're not
perfect. We can't be. But we should sure try, knowing
that it is not our power to do so, but it is the power of God
to effect good works which He prepared beforehand for us to
walk in. We deny God by works in thinking
that we're able and worthy to come to God without Him. We deny
God by works of power that give us the right to come and reject
Him. I want you to see this reality of the sin of the human nature.
Man is conceived in sin. Because that seems to be the
next argument that most people have. Well, you know, when do
you get to that age? When do you get to that point?
When do you get to that time? When you're conceived, you are
under the wrath and the judgment of God. You deserve it because
you, in the reality of your conception, are a human person. And according to the Scripture,
you're sin. 51.5 of Psalms. David crying
out in repentance. He says, Behold, see, look that
I am brought forth in iniquity. I was born in sin and in sin
did my mother conceive me. In other words, when I was conceived,
I was a sinner. In Genesis 8.21, And when the
Lord smelled the pleasing aroma, the Lord said in his heart, I
will never again curse the ground because of man. For the intentions
of man's heart is evil from his youth. Never will I ever again
strike down every living creature as I have done after the flood. In Psalm 58, the wicked are estranged
from the womb. They go astray from birth, speaking
lies. In John 3.6, that which is born
of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is
spirit. Proverbs 22.15, folly, foolishness is bound up in the
heart of a child. And because of all this, judgment
is required. Why? We can't help ourselves. It doesn't matter. We're born
into this. It's our fault. This is the penalty
of sin. All must die. All must die. That's a glimpse. This is where
I wanted to end up last week, but I just lost my focus. A glimpse
of the reality of God's holiness. All must die. All human beings
must die. Because you're already dead.
See, that's what God said. But in my mercy, I will cause
you to be born again to a living hope in Christ. You deserve judgment. I will give you life. That's
the gospel. And so when we water down sin,
when we say that people aren't sinners until they come to a
certain age and decide to sin, that's heresy. Those people are
wicked and they've been deceived. Some people are. A few people
are purposely trying to purvey that. But most people are just
ignorant. Because we are conceived in sin,
we're the enemy of God. Jonathan Edwards writes this. Their people's enmity appears
in their judgments, their decisions, their natural relish, what they
love, their wills, affections, and practice. They have a very
mean esteem of God. Men are ready to entertain a
good esteem of those with whom they are friends. They are apt
to think highly of their qualities, to give them their due praises,
and if there be defects, to cover them up. But of those to whom
are their enemies, they are deposed to have mean thoughts. They are
apt to entertain a dishonorable opinion of them, and they will
be ready to look contemptfully upon anything that is praiseworthy
in them. So it is with natural men towards God. They entertain
very low and contemptible thoughts of God. Whatever honor and respect
they may pretend and make a show of towards God, if their practice
be examined, it will show that they certainly look upon Him
as a being that is but little to be regarded. The language
of their hearts is, who is the Lord and who should obey His
voice? And that's Exodus 5.2. Or what is the Almighty that
we should serve Him? And what profit should we have
if we pray to Him? Job 21.15. They count Him worthy
neither to be loved nor to be feared. They dare not behave
with that slight and disregard towards one another or their
fellow creatures when a little raised above them in power and
authority as they dare and do towards God. They value one of
their equals much more than God and are ten times more afraid
of offending such one than of displeasing the God that made
them. They cast such exceeding contempt on God as to prefer
every vile lust before Him. And every worldly enjoyment is
set higher in their esteem than God. A morsel of meat or a few
pence of worldly gain is preferred before Him. God is set last and
lowest in the esteem of natural men. I'll tell you what, if we
were all honest, we'd see Edwards and we'd see his pen and we'd
think, who read my journal? Who read my heart? God reads
our heart. He knows who we are. And so because we are enemies,
because we esteem everything else above Him, even then we
love Him because He's given us love. We cannot please Him. The
only way we please God is to be judged by Him. God's judgment
will come to the wicked and apart from grace, nothing will save
them. Nothing will save those who consider themselves safe.
They may very well be lingering over the pot of judgment by a
thread. In Proverbs 15, 8 and 9, the sacrifice of the wicked
is an abomination to the Lord, but the prayer of the upright
is acceptable to Him. The way of the wicked is an abomination
to the Lord, but He loves him who pursues righteousness. In
Isaiah 64, 6, we have all become like one who is unclean, and
all our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment. We all fade
like a leaf, and our iniquities like the wind take us away. In
Romans 8, I've already read it, For the mind that is set on the
flesh is hostile to God. It cannot please Him. But Hebrews
11.6 says, without faith it is impossible to please God. You
might say, see, I have faith. I have faith. Do you have faith?
Is it real faith? From where did it come? Where
did your faith come? Where did your faith come? It
came from God. It did not come from the heart
that is deceitful. It did not come from the mind,
which is perverted. It did not come from your affections,
which are on the world and the flesh. It came from God, who
is pure and right. The effectual faith comes from
God alone, Ephesians 2.8.9. For by grace you have been saved
through faith, and these are not of your own doings, but are
a gift from God, so that no one may boast. See, man is not looking for God,
nor can he look for God. Sometimes some will say to me,
I love God and I sought after Him. To that I ask the question,
did you seek God in all His glory? Did you admire the very nature
of His holiness unto judgment of your own flesh? If not, then
I suggest you keep looking for the God of heaven and the God
of earth. Because this is such a being that I speak of. Keep
looking. Keep looking. Or are you seeking
for the One who gives you free bread, free life, free grace,
free forgiveness, but you do not love Him for who He is? Until we seek the God of the
Scriptures, no one has sought God. And we who are dead in our
sins will not dare stand and seek after the very One who would
or should destroy us, except that we have been made in Christ
to do so. Why would we come to the place
where we know who we are and we seek out the very One who
deserves to destroy us? We don't look for our enemies,
but we look for the One who has made us clean. We look for the
One who has given us a new heart. We look for the One who can cast
our body and soul into hell, but in His affection and His
mercy and His grace, He's given us eternal life. To the praise
of His glory. To the praise of His glorious
grace. You do not seek after God, and if you do, it is because
you seek His true face, not the peripherals of His glory. You
don't seek the benefits of His relationship. In Psalm 10, verse
4, it says, In the pride of His face, the wicked does not seek
Him. All His thoughts are, there is no God. Some of us would say,
well, I'd never say that. But we say that when we say there's
no God like that. Well, I hear what you're saying,
but there's no God like that. Well, that's the same thing as
saying there is no God, for that is the God of the Bible. And
if you don't like Him, you don't like God. You can't have it your
way. For everyone who does wicked
things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his
work should be exposed. You know why so many people oppose
sound teaching and expositional preaching? Because the wickedness
of their works of belief are exposed and they can't see it. Do you know it's wicked to believe
false things about God? It's wicked to believe false
things about the Gospel? It's a sin. It's judgment. And people don't come to the
light. They don't want to come hear sermons. They don't want
to come to grace truth. They don't want to come to anything
other than what they like. Because what they like is what
they want, not Christ. I want a church that's cooler.
I want a church with a different music. I want a church with a
different program. I want a church with a different pastor. I want
a church with a different people. Well, you're going to spend eternity
in hell with those people, probably. Who are we looking for? Are we
looking for God? Are we looking for Christ or
the Bible? Or are we looking to appease our flesh? You see
that? Man cannot know or come to God. As Moses summoned all of Israel
in Deuteronomy 29, it says, You have seen all the Lord did before
your eyes in the land of Egypt to Pharaoh and to all of his
servants and to all of his land, the great trials that your eyes
saw, the signs and those great wonders. But to this day, the
Lord has not given you a heart to understand or eyes to see
or ears to hear. 2 Corinthians 4, if our gospel
is veiled, it is veiled to the unbelievers who are perishing.
In their case, the God of this world has blinded the minds of
unbelievers to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel
and the glory of Christ who is the image of God. In Matthew 11, verse
27, all things have been handed over to me, Jesus says, by my
Father. And no one knows the Son except
the Father. And no one knows the Father except
the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal Him. Did
you hear that? So when we do see God, it's because
God. Shown himself to his son and
his son has chosen to reveal God to us. Man cannot choose
effectual salvation. John answered in John 3, 27,
a person cannot receive one thing unless it is given him from heaven.
John 14, And I will ask the Father, Jesus praying, and He will give
you another Helper to be with you forever, even the Spirit
of Truth whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees
Him nor knows Him. You know Him, for He dwells within
you, and He will be in you. John 1, But to all who did receive
Him, who believed in His name, He gave the right to become the
children of God, who were born not of blood, nor the will of
the flesh, nor the decision of the mind, but of God. John 6.65, and he said, this
is why I told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted
to him by the Father. And Philippians 2.13, for it
is God who works in you both to will and to work for His good
pleasure. See, God gives faith in all ways. No man can affect such things
because we are unable to do so. God then, therefore, overcomes
depravity. God overcomes depravity. No man
can affect such things. He overcomes depravity by killing
the sinful nature and giving the nature of Christ to those
who He saves. It's not a bowl sitting out for
righteousness to just be taken. It's the blood applied from Jesus
Christ for God to give to whom He desires. And so what is it
that God gives? Quickly in closing, God gives
these things. He gives us the ability to hear
Him. In Acts 16, listen to this. One who heard us was a woman
named Lydia from the city of Thyatira, a seller of purple
goods. Interesting. Who was a worshiper
of God, Yahweh. The Lord opened her eyes, her
heart, to pay attention to what was said by Paul. 1 Corinthians 3, 6. God gives us
the ability to grow. He says, I planted and Apollos
watered, but God gives the growth. In Acts 11, 18, God gives us
the privilege and the ability to repent. When they heard these
things, they fell silent and they glorified God, saying, Then
to the Gentiles also God has granted repentance that leads
to life. In Acts 5, it says God exalted him at the right hand
as leader and savior to give repentance to Israel, the forgiveness
of sins. And 2 Timothy 2, 24, 25, Paul exhorts Timothy to be
patient and loving with his enemies. And the Lord's servant must not
be quarrelsome, but kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring
evil, correcting his opponents with gentleness. God may perhaps
grant them repentance, leading to the knowledge of the truth.
So God provides the ability to repent. to grow, to hear, and
to believe. For it has been granted to you
that for the sake of Christ, you should not only believe in
Him, but also suffer for His sake. Philippians 1.29 God gives
us the ability to have faith. Ephesians 2.8-9 For by grace
you have been saved through faith, and this is not of your own doing.
What is it? Grace and faith and eternal life. It's not of your
own doing. It is the gift of God, not as
a result of works. Any work. that no one may boast."
In Romans 12, 3, "...for by grace given to me, I say to everyone
among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to
think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the
measure of faith that God has assigned." God gives the Spirit. Therefore, I want you to understand
that no one speaking in the Spirit of God ever says, Jesus is a
curse, and no one can say Jesus is Lord except in the Holy Spirit.
He gives us the ability to do good works, 2 Peter 1, 3. His
divine power has granted us all things that pertain to life and
godliness through the knowledge of Him who called us to His own
glory and excellence. Do you see the knowledge of Him
who is in you? Or is your knowledge the ways of man or the wisdom
of the culture, the wisdom of tradition? Is the God you know
really the God of the Bible? And if so, then is your faith
the faith that God has given you or is the faith that man
has created? In the end, all things are from
God. All that we have, every blessing, as we see in Ephesians
chapter 1, everything in Christ is from God. What's the questions
Paul asks in 1 Corinthians 4, 7? For who sees anything different
in you? What do you have that you did
not receive? And if then you received it, why do you boast
as though you didn't? You know what receiving something is?
It doesn't mean putting your hand out and asking. It means
you just got it. You receive the flu, but no one
seeks it. You receive a cold, no one gets it. You receive a
bill. Oh! You receive the grace of God and you don't look for
it. He seeks after those who don't seek Him. He finds those
who weren't looking. He saves those who hate Him.
While we were still enemies, Christ died that we might become,
what? His righteousness. His friends,
His family, His brothers. God is the one who acts. God
is the one who saves men who are dead and cannot act on their
own. And what becomes of our boasting?
Paul asks. It is excluded. By what kind
of law? By the law of works? No, but
by the law of faith. So as we look at our own hearts, as we
look at our lives, as we look at the intricacies of our soul,
we see who we really are in the picture. And we understand that
if we sit here today, with faith in Christ, effectual faith that
is because of what God has done, not because of what we have done.
And we proclaim that good news to the world. And through that
proclamation of His word, God brings people to salvation. And
when they come to salvation, they fight and they live and
they walk and they run the race. And God preserves them to the
end. And the purpose of the church is that we do it together. And if you have come to be saved,
if you have come to salvation, it needs to be visible. This
thing is a personal relationship with God. It's a corporate relationship
with God as you have a part of it. God has a bride, a church,
a body, and you're either a part of that or you're not part of
anything except His judgment. Yes, you are saved individually. You are responsible for your
sins individually. But God saves you unto the corporate
body, not to be a lone ranger in your own land. That in itself
is sin. My prayer is that you would see
what it is that God has called you to. Has He called you to
repentance and belief? Has He given you faith? Has He called
you to be a part of a local church? Has He called you to profess
Christ through baptism? To show the world that you indeed
are a child of God and have been saved? Has he called you to hit
the streets and preach? Has he called you to study, to
show thyself to prove? Has he called you to effectually
just begin to minister in your community or your home? He definitely
has. He's called you to do something.
And most importantly, he's called you to worship him out of an
affection that he gave you for himself. Let's pray. God, we are thankful that you've
loved us and that you've given us life eternal in Jesus Christ.
Father, if you had not given us grace, if you had not given
us faith and hope and belief, we would not be here today and
resting in your amazing love. Lord, I pray that these children
who are here, that the Word that has been spoken today, Father,
would just rest in their hearts so they would see it. No matter
what they might have been doing or not doing, Lord, help it rest
in their hearts. Plant a seed there. It's not
going to get there anywhere else, Lord. And with parents, we who
are parents, God, plant a seed of urgency and obedience and
sensitivity to Your Spirit as You call us out. It may be driving
down the road, it may be after we see the kids to bed, or it
may just be a specific conversation that we have, but Lord, help
us to be sensitive and be You, God. Open us to be ministers
to our children. Open us up to be ministers of
the Word to our neighbors, to our family, to our enemies. Who
are putting us a heart for prayer, that we may rely upon You in
all areas of our lives. Our personal walk, our personal
devotion, our corporate life together, our affections, our
fears. God, You are the God who sets
all that right and puts all of that in line with Your will for
us. We trust in that. We believe in that. And we thank
You. In Christ's name we pray, Amen.