Open your Bibles to the book
of Ephesians, chapter 2. Before I get there, I wanted
to read out of Romans 8. It is, I shouldn't say incredible, I
shouldn't say coincidental or anything like that. But what
Bruce taught just a little bit ago And what we heard in between
services when we were meeting in that little room, it all ties
in, it all ties in. And in Romans 8, it says in verse 6, for to be carnally
minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace, because
the carnal mind is enmity against God, for it is not subject to
the law of God, nor indeed can be. So then those who are in
the flesh cannot please God. But you are not in the flesh,
but in the spirit, if indeed the spirit of God dwells in you. So in Ephesians, We'll read chapter
two, starting in verse one. This is Paul again, this very
same author. It says, and you, he made alive
who were dead in trespasses and sins in which you once walked
according to the course of this world, according to the Prince
of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons
of disobedience. among whom also we all once conducted
ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires
of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of
wrath, just as the others. But God, who is rich in mercy
because of his great love with which he loved us, even when
we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ.
By grace, you have been saved. And raised us up together and
made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that
in the ages to come, he might show the exceeding riches of
his grace in his kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace
you have been saved through faith and that not of yourselves. It
is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. For
we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works,
which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. And I've entitled this message,
two natures, because that's all there is. There's just the two. And Paul starts off here talking
specifically about the very nature of those two natures. He said,
and you he made alive who were dead. There's just two. You're either alive or dead. And this phrase goes to the heart
of the predicament of fallen man. Because we all fell in Adam,
the first representative of man. And we use that word fall to
mean that we all fell from God's favor. But God states it in a
different way in Genesis 2. He tells Adam, but of the tree
of the knowledge of good and evil, you shall not eat. For
in the day that you eat of it, you shall surely die. He calls
it death. So when Adam took of that fruit
and ate it, he died. Not in the body, but spiritually.
And all men and women who came after him were born already dead. We were
spiritually stillborn. A preacher we all know who has
since passed on. He used to say, if you're wrong
on the fall, you're wrong on it all. God said that the fall of man
meant death. Now, how can someone be wrong
about that? How can you be wrong on the fall?
He said you'd die. That's pretty simple. They're wrong when they tell
people that they are not dead, but alive. Even if they say,
you got a little bit, just a little bit, just a hair. They're wrong
when they tell people that they can follow a set of rules to
win God's favor and earn a mansion in heaven. They're wrong when
they tell people that God loves them for who they are or for
their moral character. But being wrong about the fall
of man raises man higher. than he ought to be, and it pulls
God down lower. Now we all know we love to be
raised higher. Get the glory, get the praise,
boast a little. So that doesn't feel like such
a bad thing, but how do you think God feels about being spoken
of lower than he deserves? He does not accept a lower station. In Isaiah 45 verse 21, God declares
that there is no other God besides Him. He's the only God and He
alone will be His people's Savior. He's not sharing that. His plan
to save the elect turns on those immutable characteristics. He
must be the only sovereign God. And he must be willing to save
his chosen ones. So if you're wrong on the fall,
and you do not believe that man is not, or you believe that man
has not fallen completely, and you believe that man can do something
to be saved, maybe it's good works. Maybe
just utter a prayer. Maybe you just need that baptism. You're wrong on the fall. And
if that is our salvation, then God's love is not praiseworthy. Why write all those hymns about God's grace, about His
love? Why even say He first loved us?
Didn't we love Him first? We had to be born first? We had
to do something? If that's true, God's grace has
no place in our salvation either. But you won't find that in the
Bible. Paul says in our text, verse 8, for by grace you have
been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves. It is
the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. None
of the elect were saved by merit or by worth. Which is good, because I've got
neither. It says, it is the gift of God
by his grace. This passage in Ephesians shows
us the existence of two natures. How can a being have two natures? I'm just going to head this question
off right now. I don't know. And it doesn't say. But, thankfully, God knows. And
we're gonna trust in Him. We only get to know what's recorded
for us in the Bible. There are two natures described
here in these first 10 verses. The first one's a dead nature.
It's a dead nature. It's associated with the prince
of the power of the air. It's associated with lusts of
our flesh, desires of the flesh and of the mind, and wrath. That's
the dead nature. Paul says that we were just as
the others, and I'm including us in here. It's not just the
people that were present when he was writing this. This is
everybody. We're just as the others, which
is to say, children of wrath. We were born meek little sheep
following Jesus. We had that nature, that fleshly
nature. Paul is speaking to the church
that he helped build. He's speaking to fellow believers. He says, this is what you have. They were once dead, or sorry,
that they were once of this dead nature. And then, there is a
living nature, which is associated with God's great love, with living
together with Christ, with God's grace in His kindness toward
us, in Christ Jesus. It's associated with faith. It's
associated with the words gift of God. It's associated with his workmanship
and good works. Now those two natures are obviously
at odds with one another. You've got a dead one and you've
got a living one. You've got one that makes you
a child of wrath and one with which it is said, you have done
good works. They cannot have a common source.
They cannot. They can't come from the same
place. And if they don't have a common
source, where did they come from? To our eternal shape. One of them is strictly ours. The dead nature is one with which
we are born. And not only born with it, we
cultivate it, we nourish it, we help it grow. If you can say
such a thing about something that's dead. We become great
at fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind. We
become great at being children of wrath. I don't even need to quote scriptures
to prove this point, because you already know in your hearts
it's true. I know about it in my own heart,
and I haven't heard one believer say otherwise. We own this. Now, some might say, what's so
wrong about having a dead nature? Well, simply put, just like we've
heard in Romans, It enslaves us to the law and it makes us
enemies of God Most High. Those are things and places you
don't want to be. Turn to Romans 6. In verse 16. Do you not know that to whom
you present yourselves slaves to obey, you are that one's slaves
whom you obey, whether of sin leading to death or of obedience
leading to righteousness. That dead nature does not know
grace. It knows the law. And it desires merit. It cares
not for mercy. It wants to earn its place in
heaven by its own works. But the truth is, God did not
give us the law to show us the path we must take to righteousness.
He gave us the law so that we would turn to Christ for our
righteousness. Paul writes in Galatians 3, starting
in verse 10, it says, for as many as are of the works of the
law are under the curse. For it is written, cursed is
everyone who does not continue in all things which are written
in the book of the law to do them, but that no one is justified
by the law and the sight of God is evident. For it says, the
just shall live by faith. Yet the law is not of faith.
but the man who does them shall live by them. In other words,
if you follow the law, you must follow it completely. Not missing a sacrifice, not
missing a cleansing, not lusting, not coveting, and
forever and always worshiping God 100% all the way through. Now, dead nature cannot do that. That nature with which we are
born will be both unable to fulfill the law completely and, here's
the kicker, it will be unwilling. Those Olympians, they go out
there, they do all sorts of great physical feats. They are able. They are able to do those. And
because of their abilities, they win medals. They get accolades. They get praise. But how many are able, able, capable of doing that, but unwilling? You know, we are both when it
comes to our salvation. We are both when it comes to
righteousness. There is no one capable of fulfilling
that law. And even if there were, they
would be unwilling. Their nature doesn't permit it. That's a bold thing to say nowadays
Every church of false Christianity proclaims, like this is their
doctrine, that man has a choice and the ability to take whichever
path he desires, whether to believe on God's only son or to not believe. You are forever at that fork
in the road, according to them. That is also being wrong on the
fall. If man has the innate ability
to choose God, or to choose to be saved, then what need does he have of
God's mercy? If he can do it, and if he's
willing, what do we need God for? Right? If he can declare himself a recipient
of salvation at any time, absent an action of God, then the law
means nothing and Christ's sacrifice to put away our offenses was
unnecessary. But let me tell you what Jesus,
the Son of God says. He says in John 6, 44, he says,
no one, that includes everybody, No one, not specific to time
or geography, no one can come to me unless the Father who sent
me draws him. Now on the road to salvation,
you will not find one soul who's marching along by accident. His
GPS didn't get off and he landed on the wrong road. Everyone on
that road's been brought there by the power of God. Not only are they walking where
God has put them, they are proceeding along willingly. Willingly. Now where did that all come from? I can tell you it wasn't there
by birth. Jesus says again in John 5 verse 40, but you are
not willing to come to me that you may have life. You're not
willing. My dad once preached this doctrine
this way. He said, why won't people come
to Jesus? Because they can't. Well, why
can't they? Because they won't. We are neither capable nor willing
to go to God for our salvation in our first nature, our dead
nature. We are smitten by a double-edged
sword. First, our pride won't tolerate
giving the glory to God or anyone else for our salvation. Our pride
won't allow that. And second, we are incapable
of calling on the name of the Lord because we are spiritually
dead. Spiritually dead, we fell. A dead man can do nothing and
he will continue to be in that state of death unless God divinely
intervenes. So what hope have we? Well, here,
here is our hope. God gives to some a new nature,
a second nature, a living nature. I don't know how he does it.
I don't need to know either. He says that he can do it and
that he will do it. And those who believe on him
also believe that he will fulfill all that he has promised to do
for his people. This book is full of promises. the I wills of God. We rely on those. We all echo Paul's declaration
of faith. He says, I know whom I have believed
and am persuaded that he is able to keep what I have committed
to him until that day. That's our faith. That's the
second nature. So where does that second living
nature come from? It comes from God, through His
grace, by His work in Christ Jesus, granting us faith to believe
on Him. And we have this assurance from
the only begotten Son. We have this assurance. All that
the Father gives me will come to me and the one who comes to
me, I will by no means cast out. God doesn't guarantee general
salvation. If you are here today, you're
gonna hear the truth. But that doesn't mean you will
be saved. God opens the ears, God shuts
the ears. He doesn't guarantee the general
salvation, but he does guarantee this, that whoever calls on the
name of the Lord shall be saved. For in Mount Zion and in Jerusalem,
there shall be deliverance, as the Lord has said, among the
remnant whom the Lord calls. The fruit of that second nature
is faith. You don't have it until you have
it. He puts it there. We know this faith to be from
God because believers are His workmanship. His workmanship. And has God ever failed? God has never failed. Has a chosen
child of God ever been forgotten by the Heavenly Father? Absolutely
not. They all receive this gift from
him and we willingly change from children of wrath to children
of God. I want to read to you something
Spurgeon wrote. Because of this, we are not numbered
among the condemned. He says, This is after Romans
8 verse 1 where I'll just read it to you. There is therefore
now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus who walk
not after the flesh but after the spirit. And Spurgeon says
they are not condemned and cannot be. They struggle, they mourn,
they weep, but condemned they are not. These happy men are
known by their character. The old nature does not rule
them. The Holy Spirit guides their
lives, both in their secret walk with God and in their public
conversation among men. And not one thing that I've read
from the Bible should have given you the impression that you should
desire to follow your fleshly nature. Because just because
you have a second one doesn't mean you're free of the first.
It's still there. It's still wars. Everything that I've read from
the Bible leads to Christ. Are you persuaded that you are
not able? And are you persuaded that he
is able? And are you persuaded that you
are all sin and no righteousness? and that He is all righteousness
and no sin. If you are persuaded, then these
words have called to you with an effectual calling, not from
me, but from God. We are not given all knowledge
of how the Spirit works and where it goes. We are simply told to
believe. It is not complicated. So I ask,
can you believe? Will you? If you do, give praise to God
for having mercy on us and for giving us the gift of his son. Bruce, would you pray for us,
please? I've been to Guadalupe as a believer
of understanding.