To see, Lord have mercy, be merciful
to me. All these stains within me prove
my iniquity. ? Wash me white and spotless ?
? As snow in winter day ? ? Mercy, Lord, have mercy ? ? Upon my
wicked way ? ? Mercy, show mercy ? I keep these earrings safe. Free from sin's dark prisons,
yet still I run again. Lead me by your spirit to walk
in paths of light. Mercy, Show, O mercy, that I
may cherish Christ. Mercy, precious mercy, you're
loyal to your own. By your loving covenant, We'll never be alone. Hold us close as children who
look to you for care. Mercy, precious mercy, upon the
uncompared. Mercy, Lord have mercy. Abundant, rich, and pure. Ceaseless like a fountain, your
mercy will endure. Pour out love and kindness upon
me lavishly. Mercy, yes, your mercy goes freely
down on me. Please open your Bibles this morning to Ephesians chapter
2. Ephesians 2 beginning in verse
1. And you hath he quickened who
were dead in trespasses and sins. Where in time past you walked
according to the course of this world, according to the prince
of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the
children of disobedience. among whom also we all had our
conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling
the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature
the children of wrath, even as others. But God, who is rich
in mercy, For his great love wherewith he loved us, even when
we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ. By grace ye are saved, and hath
raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places,
in Christ Jesus. In the midst of this letter to
the church at Ephesus, Paul, in reminding them of God's
grace to them, reminds them of their past spiritual
condition, which he says was dead in trespasses
and sin. That's what it says in verse
1, That's what it says in verse
5. Dead. And he was right for reminding
them of that condition because God said through Isaiah, Harken to me, ye that follow
after righteousness, Ye that seek the Lord, look unto the
rock which ye are hewn, and the hole of the pit which ye are
digged. Remember where you were and what
you were when God showed mercy to you. Because this is the condition
that grace meets. This is the condition of the
sinner that God saves. You might say he meets a living
corpse. A living corpse. And my question today, and the
title of this message is simply, what don't we understand about
dead? What don't we understand about
dead? You see, he does not simply say
here sick, or weak, or dying, or frail, or bad off, or diseased,
or injured, or even with a broken leg. He says dead. spiritually lifeless. And man's failure to realize
this, his failure to know and to understand and admit this,
is what brings us to all his false remedies, all his false
prescriptions, All that try to deny his case
and prescribe things that don't help his case. And this is just
another evidence that he's dead. Only the dead would prescribe
such things for the dead. Only those who have not life
would prescribe or suggest non-life-giving remedies to those that don't
have life. What is it to be dead in this
sense, dead spiritually? Well, it is to be in the condition
of all Adam's race ever since the fall. It's to be in his situation
as he became so after his disobedience to God in the garden. Turn over to Romans chapter 5. And I'll read one verse simply
to you, Romans 5 and verse 12. He says, Wherefore, as by one
man sin entered into the world. He's talking here about those
two representative men. and those that they represented,
Adam and Christ, the first Adam and the last Adam. And so in
Adam, he says, wherefore, as by one man, sin entered into
the world and death by sin. And so death passed upon all
men, for that all have sinned, or all sinned in that representative
man, Adam. Because God had said to Adam,
He had said specifically, But of the tree of the knowledge
of good and evil thou shalt not eat of it. That one tree in the
midst of the garden that simply represented God's right to be
God and God's right to command his creatures. He says, Don't
eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. For in the
day that thou eatest, God knew exactly what he would
do. God ordained exactly what he
would do. And he did so that he might show
mercy to a people. But he says this, in the day
that thou eatest thereof, thou shall surely die. But as we know, Adam did not
die physically, but he did die spiritually. He did die to God. He did die spiritually and all
his generations, all his The people that he represented, they
all died in him because they all sinned in him. That's what it says. And so we
come to places like 1 Corinthians and Paul states that very thing. He says, in Adam, all died. That is, every one of us, because
we were all in Adam, we all died in him. So men and women are
alive spiritually, but they are dead spiritually because they
are born in sin. born in sin, shapen in iniquity. And for this reason, it's demonstrated
that they are such by what the scriptures say they come forth
doing. They come forth from the womb
speaking lies. They're dead because of sin. They're unable to receive spiritual
things. They're unable to know God. They're unable to understand
the things of God. They're unable to do good. That's why he says, there is
none that doeth good, no, not one. That's why he says all have
sinned. They're unable to seek God as
he is. They're unable to know God as
he is. They're unable to know themselves
for what they are. They're unable to know their
conditions. They're unable to know the way
to God. They're unable to know the truth. They're unable to know and understand
how God saves sinners. They're naturally resistant to
those things. They're unable to know what righteousness
is because they're dead. Why would we call anything righteous
which God says is unrighteousness? It is because we are dead. Born dead in trespasses and sins. And the greatest evidence, the
greatest evidence is how he seeks to come before God, how he seeks
to make amends, how we seek to deal with our sin, how we seek
to worship God. And the very evidence of that. Beginning at the first man, beginning
at Adam, is shown and demonstrated by all his posterity. What did Adam do when he ate of that tree? Well, he sought to conceal his
nakedness before God by a handmade apron or tunic. He sought out
of the fig leaves to cover himself before God and he went and hid
himself from God. Why? Because he had died. Because he was dead to God. You see, the Bible says all our
righteousness are as filthy rags, but a dead man doesn't see that. A dead man doesn't feel his sinfulness. A dead woman doesn't see her
danger. Dead people don't fear God. Dead people don't worry about
eternity. They don't worry about their
souls. They don't know they don't have
an ability to come to God. They think they can come to God
whenever they want. But the scripture says, no man
can come to me except the Father draw him. So when we read in
verses 2 and 3 about the description that he says that they were in,
he said, wherein in time past you walked according to the course
of this world. You believe like the world believes. You live like the world lives.
You view things as the world does. according to the prince
of the power of the air, the god of this world, according
to the devil himself, the spirit that now worketh in the children
of disobedience, among whom also we all had our conversation in
times past in the lusts of our flesh. fulfilling the desires
of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature the children
of wrath, even as others." What was the nature of every
one of them? He said, we were by nature the
children of wrath, even as others. They were no different than anybody
else. They were all in this same state,
following this same course. They were all dead in trespasses
and sin. They bargained with God. I hear people bargaining with
God all the time. God, if you will, I will. Or if you'll do this, I'll do
that. Only a dead person bargains with
God. Dead sinners don't see anything
of beauty in the things of God. They've never seen and can't
see the king in his beauty. The descriptions of all the great
things of God's mercy and God's grace and God's love and God's
power in that we read about in the scripture, they don't see
these things. They don't want to talk about
these things. They're not interested in these
things. They don't fear God. If you saw a body, a body could
lay out in the middle of that highway out there. And if it's
a dead body, there could be coming vehicles at breakneck speed both
ways, subject to hit it, but they don't move, they're not
afraid, they don't flinch because it's dead. Dead sinners don't see the grace
of God. I was just been thinking about
this so much lately for some reason, but when you see the
situation that was in with Gomer and Hosea, Gomer was his adulterous
wife. And the scripture says that Hosea
went and provided for her, left things outside of her room, all
the necessity things like food and all that she would need,
but she attributed it to her lovers. She said, my lovers have
got me. And that's the way we are as
sinners. We call it luck, God's blessings. We think it's something
that we have accomplished. We think it's something that
we have deserved. We think it's something that
we've just got a break on or something like that. All the
time, it's the goodness and mercy of God. What have you that you
didn't receive? And if you received it, why do
you glory in it? Dead people glory in it. They don't see any beauty in
the Word of God. They don't see any delight in
the hymns that we sing to God. They don't have any desire to
worship Him or praise Him. Why? Because they're dead. Paul said, the natural man, that
is, the way we're born, the dead man, the natural man receiveth
not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness
unto him, neither can he know them, because they're spiritually
discerned. James said the body without the
Spirit is dead. And that's the case of all men
and women naturally. Paul said, having the understanding
darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance
that is in them because of the blindness of their heart. Oh, all these other terms apply. Blindness and weakness and sickness,
all of them used to describe various conditions of sinners.
But here is the main one. He's dead. Dead. Being dead, they think they have
a free will. Being dead, they think they can
accept God or reject the gospel at any time. Being dead, they
think they have faith, they think they can repent, they think they
can come to God when and how they will. But the greatest evidence of
this death is that they have no interest in the gospel. I've thought about this a lot.
What is the chief evidence if you're a dead sinner, if the
gospel of Christ and the word of the scriptures is about Christ
who is life? What is the evidence that you're
dead? no interest in the gospel, the
word of life. They go on in life in disregard
for the only remedy for their case. They go in life Affected at all by all the only
message of hope, they go in life unconcerned about the only word
by which God quickens. And they go all their days in
this state and will, if God doesn't do something for them, through
sickness, through the most awful things going on in this world,
and through the obvious ungodliness of this world, they'll go right
on through terminal diseases and everything else, all the
way to physical death. How can a person facing eternity
knowing they have a terminal disease? How can they, first
of all, some have no interest in spiritual things at all? Or how can they cling to a false
hope and a false gospel and a false Jesus and a false superstition
of religion? How can they face death with
such? It's because they're already
dead. They're dead to the truth. They can go all their days, face
all these things, and say, I'm not afraid to die. A dead man's not afraid to die
either. A dead man's not afraid of wrath. A dead man's not afraid of affliction. They have confidence in a false
hope, they cling to old professions of religion, they trust these
superstitions, they listen to false prophets, they rely on
their own works, and they die in a false peace without the
true Christ because they're dead. You say, I don't see how they
can do that. I do. Because they're dead. These Ephesians, they were all
religious, but they were dead. They had their goddess Diana. And it caused an uproar when
Paul came to them preaching Christ, preaching grace, preaching the
gospel. You can read about it in Acts
19. The silversmiths who made trinkets
and idols to the great goddess Diana, they got upset because
they knew it was going to be bad for business. They made these little silver
idols, and the people worshiped these idols. And they told one
another, they and their discussion said, oh, he's preaching against
the work of a God made with man's hands. He was. He was preaching a God who had
man in his hands. who had grace in his hands, who
had the destiny of men in his hands, who had salvation in his
hands. He had mercy to give or withhold
in his hands. They said he's going to be bad
for business. Do you know who these men were
like? They were like these lying preachers
today. who for gain, who for glory,
who for whatever reason, they hate the gospel of grace, of
sovereign grace, of Christ's righteousness alone because they
know it is bad for their business. But we'll have to close up shop
if people start believing that. Hallelujah. They're dead. They were just
plain dead. They weren't just sick. They
weren't just lame. They weren't just having a broken
arm or something like that. They weren't in just a bad state,
whatever it was. They were dead. He says, you
were dead. Why don't we understand about
that? If we tell somebody that someone is physically dead, we
understand that, don't we? When they came and told me my
wife was dead, I knew full well what it meant. I didn't have
any questions about it. But when men and women are told
the condition that they're in, the fact that they rebel against
it, the fact that they don't care about it, the fact that
they choose some other way other than the way of truth about it,
that's just a confirmation that this is true. They're dead. But what had happened to them? What had happened to them? The
only thing that could have happened to them in light of the state
and condition that they were in. It says God had made them alive
spiritually. It says, and you hath he quickened. Now, that word may be an old
English way of saying what maybe you'll understand a little bit
better. But to quicken is to make alive. And you he hath quickened. Had they died physically? No. But being dead spiritually, it
says that God hath quickened him. He was reminding them of
the great grace and the great power of God in delivering them
from this awful state. Look at verse 4. But. That's a marvelous word of grace.
But. But God, who is rich in mercy,
we heard Richard sing about mercy. Oh, mercy. Have mercy on me,
Lord. But God, who is rich in mercy
for his great love wherewith he loved us, Even when we were
dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ. By grace,
you are saved. You say, why do you preach so
much about grace, preacher? Because grace is the only thing
that'll work for a dead man. If he can't do anything, if he
doesn't have anything, if he can't please God, if he can't
raise himself to life, God's grace is the only thing that'll
work. And grace is simply God in action. Not God saying, if you will,
I will. I remember hearing about one
of the saints, so-called, in the Catholic Church. It was like
Saint Bemis or something like that. But their myth was that
they cut his head off and he picked up his head and went all
the way around the world. And one fellow said, That's not
such a big deal. Oh yes, if he could take the
first step. If he could take the first step.
If you could take the first step for God, if you could move, if
you could please Him, if you could do, if you could believe,
whatever it is, if you could do it, the first of it, You wouldn't
need God. They couldn't make theirselves
alive. Can you? Let me tell you this. If you think you can make yourself
alive spiritually, that means you're dead. dead in trespasses and sin. If you think you can do something
that will please God, if you think you can satisfy His law
and His justice, if you think you can by some way put away
your sin or work out a righteousness that He'll accept you dead, Paul
cried over his own natural people because they were dead. How do
you know, Paul? They're going about seeking to
establish their own righteousness. But Isaiah said, the people that
walked in darkness have seen a great light. They that dwell
in the land of the shadow of death, upon them hath the light
shined. When did it shine? In Christ. Jesus said in John 5, Barely,
barely, I say unto you, the hour is coming, and now is, when the
dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and they that
hear shall live. What in the world was He talking
about? Because He'd come, and come on
an errand to save sinners, to save a people given to him by
the Father before the world began, because he would not fail in
his mission. He could say that the hour is
coming, and now is, that the dead will hear the voice of God
and live. That's what happened at Pentecost.
A bunch of dead sinners heard the voice of God, and they lived.
And that's what's been happening at Ephesus, at Philippi, at all
these places that we read about in the New Testament, all the
way to today someplace. There was once a dead preacher. He stood in the pulpit. He preached. He preached for you to accept
Jesus. He preached for just all kinds
of lies. And one day, the voice of God, through the
word of God, was made alive to him. He's made alive to that
word. He was raised from the dead. That's me. That's me. You see, God, acting by Himself,
acting in mercy and grace, had raised them to life. They'd undergone
a resurrection. A resurrection. First, they had
undergone a positional resurrection because the word here is in Christ. Verse six, and hath raised us
up together and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ
Jesus. They had been raised when Christ
came into this world, died the death of the cross, and was raised
from the dead. And not only them, but all of
God's elect, all of these people of God, God so joined them and
put them in union with the Lord Jesus Christ so that whatever
he did, they did in him. And he was buried after this
cross death and he was raised. And when he was raised, they
were raised in him and are said to be even seated in the heavenlies
in him. I'm not just here. I'm seated
in the heavenlies in Christ. God views me in his son so much
so that he is already viewing me as seated in him. They had
a positional resurrection in Christ. And he in Christ in the
everlasting covenant. And they were in Christ when
he came to the cross and died. And when he raised from the dead,
they were positionally raised in him. And then they underwent a personal
resurrection. They were born again. They were
raised to this spiritual life. Whenever Christ talked to Nicodemus,
who was a religious man, a moral man, he said to him, except you
be born again, you cannot see and you cannot enter the kingdom
of God. Why? Because you're dead. Now, can you imagine saying that
to a man like Nicodemus? He was spiritually dead, though. He said, except you're born from
above, except you have life given you from above, except you be
quickened, you cannot see and you cannot enter the kingdom
of God. So when Christ comes in John
chapter 11 talking to Mary and Martha and Lazarus
and all the folks around there, he said, and whosoever liveth
and believeth in me shall never die. Believest thou this? Well, maybe the Lord Jesus got
that a little bit backwards, according to modern preachers.
Because they say, whosoever believeth and liveth. But that's just the cart before
the horse. Unless there is spiritual life,
unless there is a visitation and an indwelling by the Spirit
of God, none can believe. The evidence of spiritual life
is faith. So it says rightly, whosoever
liveth and believeth in me shall never die. You see, the evidence that they
had been raised to spiritual life, that they were no longer
dead, was that they believed on Christ. They looked to Him
for everything. In chapter 1 and verse 16, verse
6, it says, to the praise of the glory of his grace wherein
he hath made us accepted in the beloved. Dead people quit trying
to accept Christ and they look to be accepted in Christ. in whom we have redemption through
his blood, the forgiveness of sins according to the riches
of his grace. They know that they have forgiveness. They have it as a gift. They
have it from God. They have it because of God's
grace to them. They believe God's gospel. Whenever the gospel is preached, I certainly do not look to my
powers of persuasion or my charisma or my ability to logically debate
you into the kingdom of God. None of these things, no human
instrument, no human method can accomplish this. So you say, preacher, if what
you say is true, why believe the gospel? I mean, why preach
the gospel? If this is really the condition
of men and women, by nature, by birth, why even bother to
preach the gospel? Well, the fact that you'd ask
the question like that is an evidence that you're dead. Because the living word, and
the example of it is in Ezekiel chapter 37, where God told the prophet to
go out to a big cemetery, except it was a battlefield, that just
simply lay strewn with dead bodies that had been dead for so long
that it says that they were dry bones. And they were very dry. They'd
been dead since Adam. And he said, prophesy to them. Ezekiel first asked a question
to him. He said, or God stated this thing. He said, son of man,
can these bones live? Ezekiel said, thou knowest. Thou
knowest. I don't know. It's up to me they
can't live. He said, preach to them. And he began to preach to her.
There was a little movement. He said, prophesy to the wind,
type of the Holy Spirit. He said, blow on these bones,
wind. That's what my prayer is all
the time. that the wind of God's Spirit
would blow on dead, lifeless sinners and bring them to life. And he said, bone began to join
the bone, and sinew became part of it all, and flesh covered
it all, and there stood up, rose up an exceeding great army. Wow, how could that have happened? How could a mere mortal man saying
a few words, he says, speak to him the word of the Lord. How
can that do any good? Because God, by his spirit, quickens. All his people, not all people,
but his people. All he loves, that's what it
says, all that Christ died for, he comes to them in time with the gospel, and he quickens
them. He gives them faith, just like
Lazarus. They'd already buried Lazarus. He was a goner. There's no sense.
Even don't mess in his tomb because he stinks by now. And the Lord Jesus Christ stood
before that tomb with that dead man in it, and he said, Lazarus,
come forth. He couldn't. But he did. Why? Because the power was in
the commander, was in the command. Lazarus, come forth. And somebody
said if he hadn't particularly spoke the name of Lazarus, every
dead person in the area would have come forth. That's what God's got to do for
you. It's what he had to do for me. Lazarus, come forth. Paul says in verse 8, For by
grace ye are saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it
is the gift of God. You can't even believe. You can
believe this stuff, But you can't believe the truth. You can't
believe on the Lord Jesus Christ savingly until God gives you
faith. It's a gift. It is the gift of
God. Not of works, lest any man should
boast. And that's what a dead man does,
is boast. These Ephesians and all who are
saved. repented of their dead works. They believe that God has saved
them, not according to their works, but all of grace, that
He determined to bless them with all spiritual blessings in Christ
before the world began. They believe now that He loved
them and He predestinated them to be conformed to Christ, accepted
them in Christ, And it is all to the praise of the glory of
His grace. God had made them alive so that
they could enjoy a free and a full and eternal salvation forever. And as those that were born of
His Spirit They saw the precious things of Christ that God had
given them. They said, He's the Lord our
righteousness. He's all we got. He's all our hope. He's the truth. He's the life. He's the way. He's everything. He's God's salvation. That Ephesian stuff with the
goddess of Diana, that was nothing but idolatry. We repent of that. Paul said,
Paul was more religious than probably any of us, as Saul of
Tarsus. He was a zealous man. He said, I was before a blasphemer. Do you mean to tell me that didn't
count for anything? As a Jew, as a Pharisee, as a
good moral person, it didn't count for anything? It counted
as sin? Oh, me. There's only one hope
for dead people. And that's God, like He did these
Ephesian believers, would make them alive. And when He made
them alive, they believed the truth. They believed what they
couldn't believe before. They believed what God said.
They believed what Christ says He did. And only a dead man will tell
a dead man something to do to be saved. Well, you say you got
to tell him to believe on Christ, but believing is a ceasing to
do. If you believe, you cease to
do. You enter into that Sabbath rest in Christ. You cease from
your works to trust His. But what don't we understand
about death? You see, if we understand that
we're dead in trespasses and sin, that all men are dead in
trespasses and sin, we understand that. All this foolish stuff,
we'll cease from it and look to Him whose life Look to the Lord Jesus Christ. And anybody that would tell us
to do anything else, whether it be baptize, pay this penance,
do this thing, walk this aisle, they're just dead. They're just
dead. For by grace, Are you saved? Through faith? Oh, but that's
not of yourself. It's the gift of God, not of
works, lest any man should boast. And that's the condition that
you were in when Christ came to you with the gospel. And if you're any other way down,
it's because he quickened you. That's why he gets all the glory. Our Father, we pray this morning
that you would get all the glory. We glorify the great triunity
of God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. as God our Savior. We praise your name. We exalt
you, give you all the glory, and look to you for the salvation
of all our families, our friends, all these in the world, who are
yet dead in trespasses and sin. We pray that you might be pleased
to quicken them, save them, open their eyes for your glory. We pray in your
name, amen.