This will be the first of a series
of five messages on what we call and refer to as the doctrine
of grace, the doctrines of grace. And sometime in the past, over
a controversy, a public controversy, there were published in printed
form arguments, statements, declarations against the gospel. and organizing
things into a fashion that they could be presented in writing. I don't know that there was actually
what we would call newspapers in that day. The printing press
was just being invented and things like that. But these things were
put into print, probably handwritten, and then passed among the community
for all to read. And there was arguments against
this gospel, public declarations made, and there was refutes of
those things made and also published. And they organized these things
into a system, I guess, that you call a system of theology.
And they took the first letter from each title of each doctrine,
and the letters represent the word TULIP, T-U-L-I-P. They stand for Total Depravity
unconditional election, limited atonement, irresistible grace,
and the perseverance of the saints. And together they represent the
basic fundamentals of the gospel. Now let me be quick to say that
Christ is the central theme of the gospel. The gospel is a person. the Lord Jesus Christ. He's the
good news. You take Him out of the gospel,
I don't care what you say, there's no good news left. If all you
have is a ceremony, an experience, whatever you have. Whatever you
have that you're trusting in, if it's not Him, you don't have
any good news. God put all His good news in
one person. A fellow was talking to me a
while back who had no assurance, and he just kept calling me,
and he'd find all the ifs, if, if, if, all through the Scripture,
if, if. If you endure unto the end, if
you do this, if you do that, and I told him what a man told
me one time, if you'll take all those ifs and put them on a chain
and hang them around his neck, then they're all yea and amen.
No more ifs. Hang all the ifs on his neck. This is who God first trusted,
the Lord Jesus Christ. He took all the ifs, all the
declarations, all the requirements, all that He requires from man,
and He put it around his neck. And He fulfilled it. And also
that these five things must be experientially known through
conversion and regeneration. We don't learn these things like
we do math. You will learn them. You will
learn them. I'll give them to you this morning just like I
was teaching Matt. I'm going to give them to you.
Best I can, in fact. And they're going to go into
your head. But where they go from there, I have no control
over. The rest of it, God has to do. He has to take it to the
heart. I can't take it to the heart.
And this is what he told Nicodemus, this learned master theologian
in Israel. He said, except you be born again,
you cannot perceive, you cannot see the kingdom of God. The Holy
Ghost is the teacher. He is the communicator of all
spiritual truth. And the gospel is a revelation.
It's a revelation. I don't stand and argue. I'm
not going to start arguing with somebody. I'm not going to go
down here and knock on the first church I come to and say, what
do you all believe? Here's what we believe. And then begin to
debate with them. I already know what he believes.
And he already knows what I believe. But the gospel is a revelation.
He says in 1 Corinthians 2, he gives a quote from the Old Testament.
And Paul says this, "...Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither
have entered into the heart of man." Natural man. And this is what we're going
to talk about this morning. The state and condition of natural
man. And here's one of the first things
he tells us about this man. He said that, "...Eye hath not
seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of
man the things that God hath prepared for them that love him."
He knows absolutely nothing about this work of redemption. Nothing. He doesn't have an inkling. He
doesn't have an iota. He doesn't have one speck, not
one spark of understanding. It's not in him. It's not in
him. It's never entered into his heart.
Not any of them, not the princes. He said otherwise they wouldn't
have crucified the Lord of Glory. Never entered into his heart.
But God hath revealed them unto us by His Spirit. For the Spirit
searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God." That's 1
Corinthians 2, 9 and 10. Now, my subject, as I said this
morning, is total depravity. And the Bible declares in plain
language that all men from the fall of Adam have come under
the condemnation of God by one man's sin entered into the world. That's Romans 5, verse 12. It
entered into the world and death by sin, and so this death passed
upon all men. The evidence is all have sinned. All have sinned. They didn't
die physically. They didn't die mentally. They
died spiritually. And man spiritually is altogether
sold unto sin. He is carnal, fleshly, worldly,
dead in trespasses and sin. David, the man after God's own
heart, he testifies of him own self. He said, I was shapen in
iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me. I was shapen in
that nature of my father Adam. I was put together in that womb
under the condemnation of God, bearing that image of fallen
Adam, just like him. Just like him. In Psalm chapter
90, He writes this, he said, ìWe are consumed by thine anger,
and by thy wrath are we troubled.î Verse 8, ìThou hast set our iniquities
before thee, our secret sins, in the light of thy countenance.
For all our days are passed away in thy wrath. We spend our years
as a tale already told.î A little child is born and comes
into the world, and we worry about its future, and we worry,
and rightfully so, and we worry about its education, and we worry
about its sicknesses and germs and all these things. But let
me tell you, the tale's already been told. I'll tell you exactly
what that child's going to do. It's going to do everything Adam
did. That's what it's going to do. It's going to lie. It's going to rebel. It's going
to leave its Father's house, it's going to leave His commandments,
it's going to rebel against all authority no matter where it
is and in whom it is. It's going to do exactly what
Adam did. Exactly. And you fool yourself,
you fool yourself if you think that's not so. It's so, and it's
witnessed. And that's what he's talking
about. This spiritual death passed upon all men. And the evidence
of it is that we all sinned. We all did the same thing. We
all rebelled. Now here in Psalm chapter 14,
and there's many scriptures that plainly declare the state of
man. It's not just in one place. I've already given you about
ten. But in Genesis chapter 6, just hold your place there in
Psalm 14 for a second. In Genesis chapter 6, before
God brought in a flood upon the whole earth, He saw man in his
true condition. He didn't see man in a condition
that he progressed to. He didn't grow to that condition.
But He saw the condition of man and what was manifested in the
man. And He testified. And He said,
in verse 5, Genesis chapter 6, that every imagination of his
heart was only evil continually. That's total depravity. That's
what he saw. That's what he saw. He saw it
in the little ones. He saw it in the big ones. He saw it in
the old ones. He saw it in the black ones. He saw it in the
white ones. He saw it in every man who existed on the face of
the earth. He saw it in Noah. He saw it in Noah's children.
But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. He was no different
than anybody else. He had the same sin in his heart
they had in theirs. But God had separated him to
salvation by grace. He had separated him to the hope
of Christ. to the hope of this coming Redeemer.
He gave him faith and set him aside. Noah found grace in the
eyes of the Lord. And that's my message to you
concerning this total depravity. We've got one hope and that is
to find grace in His eyes. Because there's nothing in here
but condemnation. There's nothing out there but
condemnation. There's no light. It's all darkness.
He looked and he saw that. Here in Psalm 14, in verse 1, I read it to you a few minutes
ago. The fool has said in his heart,
there is no God. But I want you to look in your
Bible, and I want you to notice that the words, there is, are
in italics. We'll take a little Bible study
lesson this morning. Whenever you find words in the
Bible that are italicized, when they have these italics, you'll
notice they'll be written a little different, and they'll sit there
off to themselves. What this means was that those
words were not in the original, they were just added to make
the text read smooth, because we don't have the exact words
for Hebrew and Chaldean and Greek We don't have the exact translation. So they tried to get as good
a translation as they could get, and they translated it, and then
they added these words. And when they did, they wanted
you to know that they added them, so they were italicized. They
were put there. So if you're having trouble understanding
a text, or a text don't seem to be just right, look in it
for those words. Sometimes just lift them out.
Read it without them. See how it reads. And you'll
find that sometimes it gives you a better understanding. In
this case, it actually does damage. It actually does damage. Because
there is no such thing as an atheist. And if I read this verse
as it reads, it seems to be saying that the fool is an atheist.
You know how you take it? The fool has said in his heart
there is no God. But that's not what this text
is saying, and you can go on down here and see in the light
of what he says under it that that's not so, because he's actively
engaged in rebellion against God. If there was no God, who's
he fighting? That's not what he's talking
about here. Actually, if you read it, it says, the fool has
said in his heart, no, God. That's what it says. He's saying
no to God. That's what this text says. He's
saying no, God, for me. Not for me. I'm not following
this God. He's saying no. No to God. No to the testimony of the Word
of God. No to the purpose and design
of God. No to the attributes and character
of God. No to the means of God. No to
the accomplishments of the Son of God. No, no, no, no to the
preaching of the gospel. No, I'm not going to bow. The
heart of sin cries, no, I ain't going to do it. I ain't going
to do it. Satan fell. What did he say?
He said, no, I will ascend up. That's what sin says. Sin says
no to God. No. No, I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to accept that.
I'm not going to receive that. I'm not going to bow to that.
I'm not going to believe that. And the one trait or characteristic
that stands out the most in fallen man is his absolute rebellion
and enmity against God. Man's not separated. Now listen
to me, in such a way that he's over here and God's over here
and he's over here with a petition built and he's over here and
he doesn't know anything at all about God. And God's over here
looking over here at man. That's not how it is. God has
left a testimony in man. Read Romans chapter 1. He left
him a conscience. And that conscience declares
unto him who God is. It declares unto him something
about the living God. And he lives in the midst of
creation. Only a fool could walk out here
and look around and think that all of this came about by circumstance. You're a fool if you believe
that. You're a fool. You're a fool if you believe
as complex as this world is that it runs on its own. Somebody
maintains and governs and does these things, and man looks at
that. Even a natural man looks at that.
And he owns up in his own heart and in his own mind that there
is a God, because this declares to him his eternal power and
Godhead. You can read it in Romans chapter
1. Listen to this. In Romans 1,
verse 19, that which may be known of God is manifest in them, for
God hath showed it unto them. The invisible things of him from
the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood
by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead,
so that they are without excuse. What am I saying? I'm saying
to you that sin, total depravity, manifests itself in active rebellion
against God, even unto the light of creation, even unto the light
of conscience. And all the way through Romans
chapter 1, he tells us that these hot and tots over in Africa with
a bone in their nose, stewing up a pot full of human flesh,
these men and women know who God was, but they didn't want
that knowledge. They didn't want to bow to it.
They willingly engaged in rebellion against it. And God gave them
over to themselves. You wonder that these big cities
like Los Angeles, San Francisco, where all these homosexuals and
pedophilia and all these things are beginning to be manifest
in a big way, you wonder what's going on. What's going on? They said, we don't want that
memory. We don't want that knowledge. And God gave them over to themselves.
Read Romans 1. Gave them over to themselves.
They changed the glory. Thinking themselves to be wise,
they become fools. And they changed the glory of
the incorruptible God into an image made like unto corruptible
man and four-footed beast and creeping thing. Wherefore, God
gave them up. What did He give them up to?
To their vain imaginations. That's exactly right. You want
to worship snakes? There they are. Worship them.
There you are. You want the lust of your flesh?
Here they are. Have at it. Reprobation. Reprobation doesn't
come because God is disinterested in men. It doesn't come because
God has no concern. He has no joy in the death of
an unbeliever. He takes no joy from that. He
turns them over to themselves because of that act of rebellion
in their heart. You know, we get this idea about
election and we're going to be getting into that. and talking
to you about election and predestination and we won't say to ourselves,
well, that's not fair. It depends on where you're at. If you're in this condition that
I'm describing to you this morning and you're sitting down there
and you're deserving of hell and your whole nature and character
and mind and everything about you hates God and rebels against
God and turns itself against all the light that God gives
you, and you're sitting down there with no hope in yourself,
Election is going to look pretty good. There isn't any hope anywhere
else. Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. He found it
in God's election. And he found it in God's righteousness
in Christ. He goes through Romans chapter
1 and he tells us about the heathen and then he comes to chapter
2 and he said, you that make judgment against men like this,
he said, you do the same thing. Don't you know that cut those
self-righteous Jews to the quick when Paul said, you're as guilty
as those homosexuals down there in Sodom and Gomorrah. Our Lord
told them the same thing. He said, if I had preached what
I preached to you and did what I did in your midst, if I had
done that in Sodom and Gomorrah, you'd still be here today. But
you're going to have the greater condemnation because you've had
the greater light. And so Paul tells him in Romans
chapter 2, you're guilty of the same thing. And finally he gets
over to chapter 3 and he said, is there any difference? Any
difference? Here's the Jew, he's got the
Scriptures, he's got the Bible, he's got the synagogue, he's
got the priesthood, he has the preachers, he has all these things. He performs his prayer and oblations
and sacrifices and offerings and he does all these things.
Is he any better off in the heart and top? No, because we have
before proved they are all under sin, not in it. Not bobbing around
in it in danger of going under. They are in sin. They are submerged
in it. It is in their nature, in their
heart, in their character, in their minds. Oh, in Romans 8, verse 7, Paul
tells us that the carnal or natural mind is enmity against God. That's the nature of it. That's
the way of it. That's its condition. And he
said to be carnally minded is death. The carnal mind rejects. It says no to all the witness
of light. The natural man, he says in 1
Corinthians 2, received not the things of the Spirit of God,
for they are foolishness unto it. Neither can he know them,
for they are spiritually understood. Now, I want you to listen close
to me here. Turn with me to 1 Corinthians chapter 4. The depravity of man set forth
in the Bible is universal. Universal in its scope. It's
universal. It's not here a little and there
a little. It's universal. It takes in all men. All men. John, that means me and you. Winston, that means me and you.
It takes in all men. Total depravity. It's universal
in its scope. And it is the same. Now hear
me. It is the same in all men. Now, as Donnie Bell said, this
is where the rubber hits the road right here. We like to see
one, this one or that one, and then see ourselves in a little
better light, don't we? That's natural. That's natural.
Man, that's how depraved we are. We can see sin in Him, but we
can't see it in us. I can see sin in a bottle, but
I don't see it in me. I see sin in drugs, but I don't
see him in me. I don't see sin. Man, he's totally
unaware of it, of what it is and its nature and the scope
of it. It's the same in all men. This
is what Paul is talking about in Romans 1 and Romans 2. And
finally he gets over to Romans 3 and then he quotes Psalm 14.
That's what he's doing here, as it is written. That's where
it was written, Psalm 14. They are none good, none righteous,
none that understandeth, and so on. But we like to see one
and this one or that one are a little different than somebody
else. We love to say, well, boy, I'm
sure glad I'm not like him. That's what that Pharisee prayed,
wasn't it? Oh, he said, I thank God I'm
not like that publican. Oh, but you are. Yeah, you are. You are. Judgment of persons. This is what's going on over
here in this Corinthian church. They were judging persons over
here in 1 Corinthians 4. And Paul writes to them and he
deals with this thing. They were seeing more significance
in one preacher than another. This man has degrees. He's got those letters after
his name. He's a D.A., M.A., on and on and on. They've got
letters and all these things. I graduated from seminary. Good
for you. It has nothing to do with this. Nothing to do with this. These
things come by revelation. And listen to what Paul said.
1 Corinthians 4, verse 3, he said, It is a very small thing that
I should be judged of you or of man's judgment. Now let that
sink in for a minute. I don't care what you think about
me. Yea, I judge not my own self. Verse 5, Therefore judge nothing
before the time until the Lord come, who both will bring to
light the hidden things of darkness, And we'll make manifest, now
listen, the counsels of the hearts. I'm going to read one more verse
to you here in 1 Corinthians 4, verse 7. For who maketh thee
to differ from another? And what hast thou that thou
didst not receive? And if thou didst receive it,
why dost thou glow it as if you didn't? God's restraining hand of providence,
be it family, your habitat, the truth as you hear it proclaimed,
all these different things, all these different circumstances,
they restrain men from being as evil as they could be. And
if you find yourself in a little better situation than that man,
it has nothing to do, don't you think, for a minute. And men
do. They see that as some sort of
personal righteousness. They see that and find a false
sense of security in it. You know better than him, and
if you are better off than him, the only reason for it is that
God has restrained you. And he didn't restrain him. The
restraining hand of God is what makes the difference in the world.
We look about us and some men just seemingly are turned loose
to do whatever they want to do. Horrible things. But I'm no different
than Him. Not in reality. My sin is no
different than His. My sin is no different than that
hot and tight with a bone in His nose, stirring the pot and
there are arms and legs and fingers floating around in there. I'm
no different from Him in the potential of what's in my heart. By nature we're the same. It's
universal in its scope and it's total in its depth. The only
difference is God has restrained you. In 2 Thessalonians chapter
2, he talks about that end time when that man of sin will be
revealed, when sin and its reality comes more into light, when God
reveals exactly what this sin is all about and where its power
and influence comes from in religion and idolatry, how it influences
the world and exercises its power over the world. And he said,
"...only he that now letteth..." You know what that word means?
Restrains. will restrain until he be taken
out of the way. Then shall that man of sin be
revealed." When God lifts His restraining hand, then you see
that sin for what it is. And out there, God has some people,
He lifts His hand from them. He lifts His hand from them.
They'll murder a hundred people. The Jim Joneses and all this
type of people, God lifts His hand just to show you what's
in your heart. and manifest what's in your heart. But this judgment of God, it
judges the counsels of the heart. It doesn't judge necessarily
what you do, it does judge those things, but it looks past those
things into the potential. It looks into the true character
and counsels of your heart. That's what judgment's all about.
Hebrews chapter 4 verse 12 tells us that God is a discerner of
the thoughts and intents of our heart. You mean I'm going to
be judged for the intents? Exactly. Exactly. If you stand before God as absolute
God, He's going to look at the motives. He's going to look at
the intents. He's going to look at the counsel.
He's going to look at the potential of what's in your heart. And
that's how you're going to face judgment. And I'm telling you,
if I was you and I had some self-righteousness, I'd throw it down. I'd throw
it down. Sin's not here, and we're over
here, and occasionally we indulge in it. We used to have a lake
when I was a kid. I'm all the time telling on myself. We had this lake, and you had
to pay to be a member. It was like a country club type
of lake, and they could go out there and play golf and picnic
and swim in the lake and boat around this lake. It was a nice
lake. None of us boys came from families who could afford that
type of thing, so we'd sneak in at night. And we'd swim out
there at night in the moonlight in that lake. And I wrote this
statement down, sin is not the forbidden waters that we sneak
out at night and swim in. It's what we are. It's not that
we occasionally indulge in it. It's what we are. We justify
ourselves and feel at peace. That's sin. That's part of it.
That's part of it. I feel righteous. I do something
good, something that's commendable in the Scripture, and I feel
good about it. That's self-righteousness. That's what that is. Isaiah said,
when you see it for what it is, he said, all of our righteousnesses
are as filthy rags. That sin, that's what I'm trying
to represent to you, the true condition of the man. Sin is
a nature, and it's our nature. And we received it by birth in
Adam, and its scope is universal. It's the same in all men. Matthew chapter 15, those Pharisees,
those religious men called our Lord out on the carpet because
His men ate with unwashing hands and defiled themselves. On another
occasion, they ate corn on the Sabbath day and defiled themselves. And he talked about them drinking
strong drink and defiling themselves. And he said, it's not what goes
into the mouth that defiles the man. It might make you sick. It might give you hangover. You
might throw up. But it's not defiling you. What's
defiling you is in you. That's why you do what you do.
And he said in Matthew chapter 15, for out of the heart, whose
heart? My heart. Your heart. Every son
of Adam's heart. Out of the heart proceed evil
thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornication, theft, false witness,
blasphemy. These are that which defile the
man. That's what our Lord told. And
not floating in a pool of sin and danger going under, he's
already submerged. And the Scripture describes us
in so many ways as totally ruined and depraved. Listen to this.
There was a woman from Tekoa. And this was all about recovering
Absalom. But she was pleading before King
David. And she said, we are as water
spilled out upon the ground that cannot be gathered up again.
That's your condition. That's my condition. Just like
a jug of water. You spilled it on the ground,
Winston, and there it goes. You can't get it back. You can't
get it back. It's gone. It's gone. That's
how she said we were. Oh, over in Isaiah chapter 1,
listen to this. In verse 5, he said, why should
you be stricken anymore? You'll just revolt more and more.
That's what I was telling you. It's this active rebellion in
our nature that rebels against us. It says no to God. The whole
head is sick, the whole heart faint, from the sole of the foot
even under the head, there's no soundness in it, just wounds
and bruises and putrefying sores. They haven't been bound up, neither
mullified with ointment. There's no purpose, he said,
in your sacrifices, and no reason in your worship, just meaningless
empty ceremonies and vain oblations, and your sacred days are a trouble
to me. I hide my eyes." He'd lift up
your holy hands and wave them to me. He said, I hide my eyes. He said, when you make many prayers
I won't hear you because your hands is full of blood. You're
dripping with blood. You're full of murder and deceit.
Come, he said, let's reason together. Let's reason together. You think
that aisle you walk is going to take that blood off your hands?
You think that decision you made is going to get rid of that nature?
You think that altar you bowed down to is going to do something
for your heart? Come, he said, let's reason together. Though your sins be like scarlet,
and that's how they are. Though they be red like crimson,
he said, I'll make them white as snow. Who will? He will. Who can reason with you? He can.
Oh, man. Totally depraved. Totally depraved. Turn with me to Matthew chapter
23. Man says, I'm not a rebel. I
don't hate God. I don't hate God. We're not enemies. We're not
idolaters. The Jews said, we'd be not born
of fornication. Listen to this here in Matthew
23-29. Now, our Lord picked these men out not because they were
the only ones who believed this way, but these were the highest
of influence. These were the teachers, the
master theologians. These were the ones who represented
all that the Jews believed. And He singled them out. And
if He condemns them, everybody under that is condemned. You
see what He is saying here? Verse 29, Matthew 23, "...Woe
unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you build
the tomb of the prophets and garnish the sepulchres of the
righteous." And you say, if we had been in the days of our fathers,
we would not have been partaker with them in the blood of the
prophets. Let's see, who was it? The guy
from out in Oklahoma. I can't even remember his name
anymore, but I remember him standing up one Sunday morning, big tears
running down his cheeks, and he was talking about the cross.
He said, if I'd have been there, I'd have stopped them. No, you'd
have been right there with the spear. Throwing the spear. You'd just like them. That's
what these men said. If we'd been in the days of our
fathers, we wouldn't have killed the prophets. We wouldn't have
done that. Why would those men do that?
I used to read the history of Israel, and I'd think, why do
they do that? Because that's what I do, and that's what you
do. Oh, they said, if we'd been in
the days of our fathers, we would not have been partakers with
them and the blood of the prophets. Wherefore, you'd be witnesses
unto yourselves that ye are the children of them which killed
the prophets, because you make this testimony in defense. He
said, you've declared to me that you're union with them. You've declared to me that you're
one of them. Fill ye up, verse 32, fill ye up the measure of
your fathers, you serpents, you generation of vipers, how shall
you escape the damnation of hell? Wherefore, behold, I send unto
you prophets and wise men and scribes, and some of them you'll
crucify, some of them you'll scourge in your synagogue and
persecute city to city. Now listen to what he says. that
upon you may come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth from
righteous Abel to Zacharias." Sin is the same apart from the
restraining hand of God. We are as guilty of the death
of Christ as we are of all the other sins we commit. By our
rebellion against the Word of God and against the preaching
of the Gospel and against this presentation of Christ that I
give to you, you reject that, you rebel against that, you rebel
against the Word of God, the plain declarations of God. You
set yourself as guilty of all the blood that was ever shed
from Abel to the end of time. That's what he said. All you
did is raise your hand and say, I'm one of them. That's what
you did. That's what man don't see. He
sees himself guilty of a few things, but he can't see his
union in this thing with all these crimes. And it's not until the Holy Spirit
of God shows you hanging on that tree exactly what sin is going
to do. Turn with me to Romans chapter
8. Not something I was I'm not planning on showing you, but
I want you to see it in Romans 8. He says in verse 2, For the
law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free
from the law of sin and death, from that principle of evil,
from that nature of evil. for what the law could not do
in that it was weak through the flesh. God sending His own Son
in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, condemned sin in
the flesh. He took all that's in us and
all that's about us and our filthy righteousness and everything
else that concerns us and the very heart in us that rebels
against God and He put it on His Son and He nailed Him to
a cross and He said, here's what I think about sin. That's what
Paul is saying. That's where you learn what's
in your heart on the cross. Dying, suffering under the hand
of God. That's what's in your heart and
that's where it's revealed. Oh, there's no climbing up out
of this nature. There's no reformation of this
nature. There's no hope of goodness or
potential of righteousness in us. There's no will or affection,
no mind, no way out. It's a prison. Chains of darkness
fetter our persons. The wrath of God, he said, abideth
on those who believe not. Repentance is not a desire to
be saved from hell. It's a desire to be saved from
ourselves. That's what it is. Why preach
on total depravity? Why preach on these things? Why
set these things forth before the church? Why do that? Why
do you want to make everybody feel bad? Because you're not
going to turn to Him until you turn away from yourself. And
you're not going to turn away from yourself until you see what
you are. There's a two-fold message of
evangelism. And it's stated over in the book
of Isaiah when he talked about John the Baptist coming into
this world. And the voice said, cry. He said, what shall I cry?
All flesh is grass. That's where you start. When
you get that message, when they receive that message, then you
can say, behold, you're God. Up until that point, grace, election,
predestination, all these other things, just foolishness. Just
foolishness. But when you see what you are,
you're going to turn. You're going to turn. Nobody
is going to have to take you by the arm. Nobody is going to
have to persuade you. We're not going to have to sing ten verses
of a song to get you down an aisle. All you got to do is have
a glimpse, just a glimpse of what you are.