Almost 400 years ago, the Scottish
Puritan Thomas Boston wrote an excellent book called Human Nature
in its Fourfold State. I read the book when I was 18
years old, I guess. Excellent, excellent book. It's
still being reprinted today. I take Boston's title for the
title of my message this morning, Human Nature in its fourfold
state. Our text will be Romans chapter
3, verses 9 through 19. Romans the third chapter, verses
9 through 19. The Apostle Paul in the first
chapter of Romans declares to us that all men without religion,
without the Bible, without any revelation from God except by
creation, are lost without Christ. In chapter 2, he tells us that
the Jew, all men without faith in Christ, though they have a
Bible in their hand, though they have the oracles of God, though
they're religious, without faith in Christ, all are lost, religious
and irreligious. Now, chapter 3, verse 9, 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, this is what
it means to be under sin. This is what it means to be a
sinner. This is what it means to be as you are by nature. As it is written, there is none
righteous, not a one. No, not one. There is none that
understandeth. No man, no woman, no child ever
performed a righteous deed before God. No man, no woman, no child
without the Spirit of God, without being born again, understands
anything in this book Anything about God, anything about spirituality,
anything about righteousness, anything about grace, anything
about the things of God. There is none that understandeth. There is none that seeketh after
God. People seek religion. People
seek peace. People seek a refuge. People
seek comfort. People seek hope. None seek after
God. They're all going out of the
way. All the human race going out of the way. They are together. That is, at one time, through
the sin and fall of our father Adam, they are together become
unprofitable. Unprofitable. There is none that
doeth good. No, not one. Their throat is
an open sepulcher. Their throat is like a grave,
unfilled, full of rottenness. With their tongues, they've used
deceit. The poison of asp 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 ways, and the way of peace That is Christ the Lord. Faith
in Christ. The gospel of God's free grace.
Have they not known? There is no fear of God before
their eyes. No reverence for God. No fear
of God. No reverence for God. No fear
of God. Men who do not revere God Do
not fear God. There's no fear of God before
their eyes. Now we know that what things
whoever the law sayeth, it sayeth to them who are under the law. It says to sinners, such as we've
just described, that every mouth may be stopped. That every mouth
may be stopped. That is to say, To you who are
yet without Christ, to you who yet believe not, to you who yet
live in rebellion to God, you're without excuse. God has written
his word, specifically God has given his law to strip you of
every pretended excuse that every mouth may be stopped and all
the world become guilty before God. With those words, God the
Holy Spirit inspired the Apostle Paul to describe the nature of
fallen man. Every human being since the fall
of our father Adam comes forth from his mother's womb speaking
lies. He comes into this world under
sin. Every child born of a woman comes
into the world Dead in trespasses and in sins. In a state of total
depravity. Utterly corrupt. Completely sinful. With no desire to improve himself
and no ability to improve himself if he had the desire. You who
are without Christ are dead in trespasses and in sins. You're
corrupt at heart, in your nature, at the very core of your being,
and there's nothing you can do to change it. More than that,
you have no desire to change what you are. That's the condition
of man. You and me, by nature. Had I nothing else to preach
to you, but what we have just read, as revealed here in this
text of scripture, I frankly Don't think I could bear to declare
what we've just read to you. But blessed be his name forever. God's given me something more
to say. Sinners we are. Sinners justly deserving God's
wrath forever in hell. And sin we must own. Sin, we
must confess to God. But that sad, gloomy fact is
something I rejoice to declare to men. I rejoice to tell you
what you are by nature, what you are by your father, Adam,
because Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. Oh,
what good news. For this cause, Jesus Christ
came into the world to save those who are lost. The Lord God declares,
if we confess our sin, I call on you where you are right now. Every one of you. Oh, may God
enable you. Confess your sin. Confess your
sin, not to me, not to a preacher, not to a church, not to a priest,
to God. Tear open your heart before God. Ask God to cause his light to
shine in your soul that you may know what you are and confess
your sin. John Newton put it this way.
I would disclose my whole complaint, but where shall I begin? No words
of mine can fully paint that worst distemper sin. It lies
not in a single part, but through my frame is spread a burning
fever in my heart, a palsy in my head. If we confess our sin,
God says he is faithful and just to forgive us our sin. Man, fallen,
depraved, sinful man is set before us in this book. as the distinct,
peculiar object of God's mercy, love and grace in Christ Jesus,
the Lord. I wonder if there's a sinner
in this building. A sinner. Find me a sinner and I'll find
you a person who is the object of God's everlasting love. the
object of divine election, one who is redeemed by the precious
blood of Christ, one who shall be saved. Find me a sinner. A
sinner is a sacred thing. The Holy Ghost hath made him
so. Few, few, few, few ever know themselves to be sinners. A sinner
is one who's without excuse before God and knows it. A sinner is
one who is corrupt in his heart, in his nature, and knows it.
A sinner is one who is altogether helpless before God and knows
it. A sinner is one in desperate
need of Christ the Lord and he knows it. A sinner is one who
needs mercy and grace, forgiveness from God, and he knows it. Find
me a sinner and I'll find you one who's the object of God's
grace. What is man? Some of us ask, what is man that
thou art mindful of him? The son of man that thou visitest
him. What is man? Don't ask the philosophers what
they imagine. Don't ask educators what they
read in their books. Don't ask scientists what they
see in their microscopes or in their labs. Don't ask psychologists
what they see in their asylums or sociologists what they learn
from all their various tests they give. If you want to know
what man is, ask God who made us. God declares in his word
that man is fallen, depraved, sinning, sinful, cursed, condemned,
helpless, dying flesh. This is what God says of man.
Men are grasshoppers. Men are the dust of the earth. less than the dust of the balance. Man is a lump of clay, a puff
of smoke, a mist of vapor, less than nothing. Insignificant. Insignificant. Insignificant. Man is not at all relevant before
God. He's less than nothing. Man's
nothing, he has nothing, and he can do nothing. And if you
add nothing to nothing, I don't care how many times you add it,
you still come up with nothing. Man is nothing. Still, God Almighty
teaches us that this is what man is, and we must learn it. Now to this end, I want to show
you these four things revealed in scripture about human nature. First, let's go back to Genesis
chapter 1. Genesis chapter 1. Our text describes man in a state
of sin. Fallen, depraved, guilty. But that wasn't always the case.
In the beginning of the creation, In the beginning of the book
of God, here in Genesis 1, we see man in a state of innocence. Innocence was the original state
and condition of man in the garden before he sinned, before sin
entered into the world. I remember hearing Brother Henry
Mahan tell many, many times of the days of Great Depression,
like some of you, he grew up in those days. During the Great
Depression, there were soup lines in almost every major city in
the United States. One day a man was serving soup
in one of those long lines and he spotted a man back in the
line that caught his attention. The man obviously was wearing
a suit that was made for a wealthy man. It was a suit that obviously
once belonged to a man of some position in society. And this
fellow serving the soup just couldn't take his eyes off of
him, kept staring at him. And as is normally the case when
you stare at a fellow, he soon catches on. And the man came
up to get the soup as he did. And the man gave him his suit.
This man who was so dressed in such a fine suit looked at him
and said, I've seen better days. So it is with humanity. We've seen better days. You read
the newspaper and you read about humanity. You read about war. and disease and pestilence, and
you read about the corruption of man's nature, you read about
murder, mass murder, genocide, and what you're reading is what's
in your heart. What you're reading is what's
in my heart by nature. That's what we are. That's what
we are. Look in the mirror. Look in the
mirror. Every time you see a report of
some horrible evil on television, go look in the mirror and say,
this is what I see. This is man. This is man. This is man at his best estate,
altogether vanity. But that's not how things began.
Solomon declared, lo, this only have I found, that God made man
upright. But they sought out many inventions.
Look here in Genesis 1, 26. God said, the triune Jehovah,
Father, Son, and Holy Ghost said, let us make man in our image
and after our likeness. And let them have dominion over
the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over
the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping
thing that creepeth upon the earth. So God created man in
his own image. In the image of God created he
him. Male and female created he them.
And God blessed them. And God said unto them, be fruitful
and multiply and replenish the earth and subdue it and have
dominion over the fish of the sea and over the fowl of the
air and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth. Now,
let me show you what man's condition was when he was created by God
in the garden. Man was created in the image
of God. Now that means many, many things,
but one thing it most certainly means. Adam was created in the
moral likeness of his creator, in righteousness, in innocence. He had no sin, no sinful nature,
no inclination towards sin. No reason to say it. There was
no evil around him and no evil in him. He was created righteous
in the garden of God. This man whom God created in
righteousness was not only upright, but he was intellectually brilliant. I know that people today have
the idea that man started out as some kind of a glob of something
or another, some kind of slime. and then evolved into a mythical
caveman. He may have become a caveman
in the 21st century, but that's not how it started out. Oh, no.
God created Adam with brilliance we haven't begun to conceive.
This man, Adam, named every living creature God created upon the
earth. One man. Named them all. One
man. Read the book. Well, you don't
believe that Adam and Eve myth, do you? If that's a myth, throw
this book away. It's of no use. If that's a myth,
everything in here is a lie, and you won't profit by living
by a lie. No, no. That's no myth. This
is what God says. God brought every animal he made,
every beast of the field, every fowl of the air, and said, what
will you call that? and Adam named them all. This
was a man of brilliance. Adam was created a mature man,
brilliant and upright. Not only that, God gave Adam
dominion over all his creation. Imagine that. Imagine that. God
said, you rule the world. made man to have dominion over
every creature. The angels of God were made to
serve man. Imagine that. God made Adam to
have dominion so that this man, Adam, this man, Adam, ruled every
creature of the earth. It's impossible for us knowing
the weakness, stupidity and wickedness of man today to imagine what
Adam and Eve must have been before the fall. I often just try to sit and think
what this created pair must have been like. God created Adam and
then he created Eve same time he created Adam. But Eve did
not come forth. until God caused a deep sleep
to fall upon Adam. And he took one of his ribs and
he brought out Eve, made the rib to be his wife. So it is
with Christ in his church. God created us in Christ, our
Redeemer, before the world was when Christ stood forth as our
surety. We had life in him, but we're brought forth when the
son of God laid down his life for us and we were brought out
of our Redeemer. Adam was created in the garden
and his wife Eve. brilliant, righteous in dominion. And they were both naked before
God. Naked before God. And were not
ashamed. Were not ashamed. That doesn't
simply mean they didn't have any clothes on. They didn't have
any reason to. But it means more than that. They were consciously
naked before God. and had no reason to blush. Merle Hart, every time we sense
our nakedness before God, we have reason to blush because
we know what we are. Not Adam and Eve. And then there
was a condition put. There was one condition in the
garden for man's stability in this state of righteousness,
brilliance, and dominion. God said, Adam, you can have
everything here. You can eat of every tree in
the garden, but here's one tree, this tree in the midst of the
garden of the knowledge of good and evil. You must never eat
the fruit of this tree. This tree is the symbol of my
right to be God. This symbol, this tree is the
symbol of my right to have and exercise dominion over you just
as I've given you to have dominion over the earth. In the day you
eat of the fruit of this tree, you're gonna die. And Adam sinned
against God. You read about it in the third
chapter. Adam took the forbidden fruit and plunged himself and
our race into sin. God made man upright, righteous,
without sin, holy, but we didn't stay that way very long. Turn
to Ephesians chapter 2. Lo, this only have I found, that
God made man, God made Adam upright, but they have sought out many
inventions. So second, the word of God gives us a clear, unmistakable
picture of man in a state of sin. The picture drawn of fallen
man in this book is not very pretty. It's a horrible picture. But it's a picture given by God
in his word. It's contrary to the picture
given by moms and dads of their children. It's contrary to the
picture given by children of their parents. It's contrary
to the picture given by sociologists, politicians, and preachers. But
this is what God says. Man was shapen in iniquity and
conceived in his mother's womb and sin. The wicked are estranged
from the womb, estranged from God from the womb. They go forth
from the womb, speaking lies. There are no exceptions. All
men and women are, from the moment of conception, sinners. We come
forth from our mother's womb in sin, dead in trespasses and
sin. Sin is not the result of the
way you're raised. Sin is not the result of your
environment. Sin is not the result of bad
circumstances. Sin is not the result of the
company you keep. You keep the company you do because
they're just like you. You are in an environment that
has such as this because it is the environment of your own creation.
Men are sinners by nature. This is what we are by nature.
Look here in Ephesians chapter 1, chapter 2 rather. We are a
people laden with iniquity, a sinful people, a seed of evildoers,
children that are corruptors. You hath he quickened who were
dead in trespasses and in sins. How did we get to be such? How
did we get into this mess? We did so representatively in
our father Adam. When he sinned, we sinned. When
he died, we died. 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. We're sinners by nature. The
heart of man by nature is enmity against God. And we have all
willfully forsaken God. We have all willfully sinned
against God with every breath from our youth up. It's a matter
of willful choice as well as of nature. You hath he quickened
who were dead in trespasses and in sins, wherein 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 the
children of disobedience. Now this is what God the Holy
Spirit is telling us. Before God saved us, every one
of you who are saved, every one of you who are born of God, before
God saved us, we walked according to the course of this world.
We everyone walked according to the spirit of the prince,
the power of the air, the spirit that now works in those who continue
to walk contrary to God as children of disobedience. And what's this?
Verse three, among whom also we all had our conversation in
time past. This is how we live down and
give me all the days of our lives. This was our conversation, our
manner of life. in the lust of our flesh, fulfilling
the desires of the flesh and of the mind. That's true of everybody
here. That's true of everybody here.
That's true of every human being. Some walk after the lust of their
flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind
in open profligacy. drunkenness and immorality and
revelry. Others walk according to the
lust of their flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and
of the mind, pursuing high rank in society and wealth and nobility
and honor and fame, all looking for the same thing, to gratify
their lust. That's all. That's all. So some,
some we look at and say, Oh, he's such a fine man. He gratified
lust that impress us. Another one of that, Oh man,
I wouldn't want my daughter near him. He's lived just exactly
like the other one, fulfilling the lust of his flesh, doing
what he desires by nature to do, seeking gratification to
his flesh. And we were by nature, Children
of wrath, wrathful children, even as others. Children hating
God. Children despising God. Why do
men and women live like they do? Why? Because man hates God. Brother Lynch has been teaching
the last few weeks, out of John chapter 15, talking to us about
our Savior hated without a cause. he was crucified at Calvary because
that's what man would do to God if he get his hands on him. Every
man. Every man. You too. Me too. That's our nature. Fallen man
is dead in trespasses and in sins. Read the third chapter
of Romans again and again until that portion of scripture is
burned in your heart by God, the Holy Spirit. And you find
that you, like all others, are guilty and without excuse before
God. This I know, you will never seek
mercy until you need mercy. You will never seek the righteousness
of Christ until you know that you have none of your own. You
will never seek forgiveness until you know your sin. You will never
seek grace until you know your guilt. It will not happen. May
God, the Holy Spirit, make you to know what you are. We are,
every one of us, every one of our children, sinners, corrupt
at heart, corrupt by nature, corrupt by choice, and corrupt
by practice. So vile, so corrupt we are that
the thoughts of every human heart. Oh my God, how I long for the
day when it shall no longer be so with me. The thoughts of every
human heart are only wicked continually. Mary Lou Duff, I love you to
death. Thank God for you. That's the thoughts of your heart
all the time. All the time. Only evil continually. Only evil continually. When did
you think something else? I ask you, when did you think
something else? Something other than evil. That's
the nature of man. So evil are we that we cannot
and will not do good. And if you die without Christ,
this is what you shall be forever in hell. Whatever else hell may be, it
is a place of everlasting, ever-increasing torment, blackness, darkness,
corruption, and burning lust without satisfaction forever. Forever. This is called total
depravity. We are totally depraved, spiritually
dead centers by nature, incapable of changing our condition, or
even wishing to change it. All right, third. You're still
in Ephesians 2, look at verse 4. Here we see human nature in
a state of grace. Ruth sang that hymn, But God. These have got to be two of the
sweetest, most blessed words in all the book of God. I ran as fast as I could, as
hard as I could to hell, with my fist shoved in God's face,
demanding, God, get out of my way. God, get out of my way.
God, get out of my way. Leave me alone. Leave me alone. God, get away. Get away. until
one day God stepped in my way. He said, hitherto shalt thou
go and no farther. Oh, how thankful I am for God
sovereignly putting himself in my way and stopping me in my
mad rush to hell. But God, who is rich in mercy
for his great love wherewith he loved us, even when we were
dead in trespasses and sins, hath quickened us, made us alive
together with Christ. By that he means by grace you
are saved and hath raised us up together and made us sit together
in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. that in the ages to come
he might show the exceeding riches of his grace and his kindness
toward us through Christ Jesus. For by grace are you saved through
faith, and that not of yourselves, it's the gift of God, not of
works lest any man should boast. For we are his workmanship, created
in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained
that we should walk in them. Now let me show you something
about the state of grace. You who are in a state of grace,
oh may God be pleased now to put you in a state of grace.
May God be pleased to raise you from the dead and give you faith
in Christ. If right now God will give you
faith. If right now you can believe
on the Son of God, if right now you will confess your sin, this
is the state of grace. Forgiven. Forgiven. Forgiven of all sin. Past, present, and future. Forgiven
justly through the blood sacrifice of God's darling Son. Forgiven
of sin. Transgressions blotted out. Transgressions
cast into the depths of the sea. Of our transgressions, God says,
I will remember your sins no more, forever forgiven. Forgiven. Oh, how blessed it
is to be forgiven. If you know what guilt is, You rejoice in forgiveness. To
be forgiven. Forgiven of all our sins by God's
free grace. Oh, what a blessed word of grace
that is. Forgiven. Second, to be in a
state of grace is to be justified. Justified just with God. Justified. Having met every claim
or every demand of God's holy law, having met every demand
of God's justice, by Christ Jesus our substitute, by Christ our
surety, we are justified with God. That means that we are equal
to the demands of God, who said, walk before me and be perfect.
Be ye holy, for I am holy. That means that God himself has
no reason ever to condemn. God himself has no reason ever
to frown. God himself has no reason ever
to be displeased with any who are justified, but rather we
are the objects of his constant pleasure and delight and complacency
in Christ the Lord justified. Blessed is the man to whom the
Lord will not impute sin. We all have trouble with our
sin, our corruption, our vile nature. Sadly, we are tempted
of Satan and our flesh quickly agrees to look for hope in ourselves
by improvement in our behavior. But the more honest you are,
the more wicked you know yourself to be. And looking to yourself
will only bring despair, will only bring hopelessness. God
doesn't look to Don Fortner for anything. He looked my surety
for everything. You understand that? God will
not impute sin to me. He will not impute sin to his
people because he made his son sin for us, imputed our sins
to his son, and fully satisfied his justice in the slaughter
of his son under the law of God as our substitute who put our
sins away. And now justice will not allow
him to impute sin to those for whom Christ died. Those who are in a state of grace
are sanctified. regenerated, born again, given
a new nature, raised from the dead. Blessed and holy is he
that hath part in the first resurrection, Revelation 20, verse 6. On such,
the second death, eternal damnation, shall have no power. Blessed
are you. Holy are you who have part in
the first resurrection raised up from spiritual death to spiritual
life in Jesus Christ the Lord. On you. Hell shall have no power. God's people are sanctified,
made holy by Christ being put in us as the righteousness of
Christ is imputed to us in free justification. His righteousness
is imparted to us in free sanctification, making us to be partakers of
the divine nature, holy before God. And that causes us in this
state of grace to be constantly at war. warfare between the flesh
and the spirit, constantly at war with ourselves. The old man is not yet dead, but warring in our members, the
flesh lusting against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh.
And these two are contrary one to the other. so that you cannot
do the things you would. Every believer has reason to
say, often with David, so foolish was I and ignorant. I was as a beast before thee.
And we have reason to rejoice and sing with David. Nevertheless,
God is still our refuge. When my heart and my flesh faileth,
the Lord shall take me up. He will guide me with his counsel,
and afterward receive me up to glory. The foundation of God
standeth sure. But blessed be his wonderful
name. God's not done with us yet. Turn to 1 John chapter 3. There's another state of man
described in this book. You who perish without Christ,
in the darkness of depravity and sin and turmoil will be in
the darkness of depravity and sin and turmoil forever in hell. Oh, may God save you from that
pit. The children of God will dwell
forever with Christ in glory. So this is the fourth thing.
The word of God describes the state of man in glory. I don't
pretend to know much about that because I don't know much, but
I know this. In that blessed state called
glory, every chosen blood-bought sinner shall be with Christ and
like Christ forever. Look at this. Behold, what manner
of love the Father hath bestowed on us that we should be called
the sons of God. Therefore, the world knoweth
us not. because it knew him not. Beloved, now are we the sons
of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be. But we know
that when he shall appear, we shall be like him, for we shall
see him as he is. Oh, my brother, my sister, you
who trust Christ, we are heirs of God. and joint heirs with
Christ. That means the glory that now
is His soon shall be possessed by us in the experience of everlasting
glory. Personally, we too shall enter
into that glory, His glory, eternal glory. In glory land, all the
truest, deepest desires and longings of every saved sinner will be
perpetually fulfilled. If you could have what you want,
I mean what you really want, what would it be? Would it be
perfect holiness? Perfect sinlessness? Perfect
communion with the Redeemer. Sweet, sweet communion with the
Triune God uninterrupted by anything. Complete consecration to God. That's what we soon shall have. Fred, that's just beyond imagination.
Revealed plainly in this book, but beyond imagination. Soon
we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. No sorrow,
no sighing, no sickness, no pain, no parting, no pining, no confusion,
no conflict, no crying, no division, no disappointment, no death,
no sin, no sin. No sin. William Guthrie, one of the Puritans,
once went to see a lady. He didn't know she was sick,
and she didn't know how sick she was. When he met her, she
acknowledged that she was lost, and he preached the gospel to
her, and God saved her by his grace. Before he left the room, she
was dead. When Guthrie got home that evening,
he said to his family, a woman I met today in a state of sin,
I saw in a state of grace, and I left in a state of glory. Christ shall come and raise these
bodies to be made like unto His glorious body. And not only shall our souls have glory, these bodies, sown
in corruption, shall be raised in glory. the very glory which
Christ Jesus, the Son of God, our substitute, earned for us
by his obedience unto death. Amen.