What Does It Mean to be Dead In Sin

Now let's look at our text again,
Colossians 2, verse 13. And you being dead in your sins. And you being dead in your sins. What does it mean to be dead
in sins? Paul wrote in Ephesians 2, verse
1, And you who were dead in sins hath he quickened. made alive. He wrote again in Ephesians chapter
2, verse 5, even when we were dead in sins, he hath quickened
us together with Christ. Now, there are plenty of people
who have had difficulty with these scriptures. Actually, they're
so important, and the understanding of what it means to be dead in
sins is so important that what a man believes about these verses,
you hath he quickened who were dead in sins, and you, when you
were dead in sins, hath he quickened. What you believe about these
verses will determine your whole system of theology. This is the
start, this is the foundation, this is the beginning. You may
not believe that, but it's so. What you believe about these
verses, what it means to be dead in sins, will determine what
you believe about salvation. What a man believes about the
fall, what a man believes about man's condition out of Christ,
without Christ, determines whether he walks the road of grace, salvation
is of the Lord, from beginning to end, or whether he walks the
road of salvation by works and salvation by human will. This
is where it starts. This is where it begins. What
you believe about what it means to be dead in sin, that determines
your theology. That determines what you believe
about salvation. That will determine whether you
walk all the way the road of grace or the road of works. Now,
you may have a smattering of grace on the road of works, and
you may have a smattering of works on the road of grace, but
it determines whether you travel the road of grace or the road
of works. What does it mean to be dead in trespasses and sins?
Well, first of all, we're not dead physically. Not yet. We're dying, but we're not yet
dead. We move, we talk, we communicate
with others. We're not dead physically. We
feel pain, we thirst, we hunger. We feel passions, desires, grief. We're not dead physically. We're
dying physically. Some of us may be very near to
physical death, but we're not dead physically yet. All right? Secondly, man is not dead mentally.
No, he's not. To be dead in trespasses and
sin is not to be dead as this pole did or dead as a doornail.
I hear preachers say that. It's not true. A man is not dead
mentally because he's dead spiritually. He's dead spiritually, but he's
not dead mentally. Every person who's alive physically
has a mind, some sharper than others, some keener than others,
but every living person has a mind. Not only do we have a mind, but
we have a heart, a heart of passions and emotions and affections,
of love and hate. We have affections. We have a
heart. We're not dead mentally. We have a will. Every man has
a will. Don't ever believe that man doesn't
have a will. He does have a will. The conflict
is not in what we call free-willism. The conflict is not whether man
has a will or not. He has a will. The scripture
teaches that that will is enslaved to the flesh, though. That will
is not free, it's enslaved. That will is in bondage, but
he has a will. He wills to do what he wills
to do. So man's not dead mentally. You
can hear me. And you can, as I announce this
topic this morning, what it means to be dead in sin. The believers
here, the people who've been regenerated, the people who are
not dead in sin, they can think on these things and determine
whether or not I'm preaching the Word of God. And you who
are dead in sin, you can think on these things and you can determine
whether or not I'm preaching the Word of God. You may not
believe it, you may not like it, you may not love it, you
may not submit to it, but you can hear it. Our Lord told those
who were dead in sins that the word which they heard would judge
them. And the more word that a man hears, the more he adds
to his condemnation. The people we preach to are not
dead mentally. And the more they hear the word
of God, the more responsible they are. Even a rebel can know
what his master's will is. He may not do it. He may not
want to do it. He may not delight in doing it,
but he knows it. To them that know to do good
and do it not, to them it's sin. They know to do good. Even the
Gentile heathen know the law of God is written in their hearts.
They're not dead mentally. That's not what dead in sin means
at all. And if that's your concept of
being dead in sins, that a man has no will, he has no heart,
he has no mind, you're wrong. Dead wrong. He's a responsible,
accountable human being with a mind and with a heart and with
a will. And then he's not dead morally. No, sir, man's not dead
morally. He knows right from wrong. If
he were dead morally, he would not be responsible. He performs
both good and bad deeds. Every son of Adam performs both
good and bad deeds. A man may be a total rebel against
God Almighty, but he performs a good deed in going out and
working for his family, cutting his grass, making his neighborhood
look better, giving to the United Fund, giving to federated charities,
giving to the orphans home. He does good deeds. He's not
dead morally. He knows right from wrong. Every
person knows right from wrong, no matter where they are, who
they are. They're not dead morally. God's Word doesn't say he's dead,
either physically or mentally or morally, it says he's dead
spiritually. In Adam all died spiritually. Death passed upon all men spiritually,
were dead spiritually. Now what does that mean? Well, man has fallen. Not this
man, that man, the other man, but all men, the whole race. In Adam, all sinned. That's what
Scripture said. In Adam, all died. Not a few
leaves, not a few limbs, but the whole tree. The root, the
trunk, the limbs, the fruit, all of it's corrupt. It's corrupt
from the very deepest root in the ground to
the topmost branch on the tree. Spiritually without God, spiritually
without Christ, spiritually without hope. not subject to the law
of God, neither indeed can be, the natural mind. He has a mind,
but it's enmity against God. The heart, he loves, but he does
not love God. He loves himself. He does not
love God. Christ said, you do not love
God. The love of God's not in you. The natural man does not
see. He sees physically, but he does
not see spiritually. He hears physically, but he does
not hear spiritually. He understands mentally, but
he does not understand spiritually. There's none good, no, not one. There's none that understandeth.
There's none that seeketh after God. They all together become
unprofitable. There's none, none that doeth
good, no, not one. Dead spiritually. When we talk
about being dead in sins, we're talking about sons of Adam being
dead spiritually. Now, what does that comprehend
or include? four things, mainly. Number one,
man, the natural man, the man who's dead in trespasses and
sins, first of all, that man is dead to a knowledge of the
strictness of God's law. He does not understand the law
of God. Now, a rich young man came to
our Lord one day, and don't be too quick to condemn this young
man, because we do the same thing. I hear this all the time. And
really, it makes me cringe. I wonder if people really, they're
reading the Bible, they're hearing the preached word, is it registering? But this young man came to our
Lord, and this is the way he began his conversation. Good
master, good master, what must I do to inherit eternal life?
And our Lord quickly corrected him. He said, why do you call
me good? There is none good but God. Now
Christ wasn't denying his deity. He knew he was God. He knew he
was good. He said, which of you convinces
me of sin? But he was teaching this young
man a lesson. If I'm not God, if you don't regard me as God,
if you don't believe I'm God, if you don't look upon me as
God, why do you call me good? But this is something we do all
the time. I visited not long ago the funeral
home. The man had died. I don't know
his relationship with God, but it's suspect. But anyway, when
I went in to visit the funeral home, someone met me and they
said he was a good man. He was a good man. No mother
has a bad son. They're all good boys. My boy's
a good boy. My husband's a good man. If we only knew the absolute,
strict holiness of God's immutable law, we'd quit talking about
human goodness. We'd quit using the word good
in connection with any flesh. That's what our Lord's saying
to this young man. Why call me good? Why do you call me good?
There's none good but God. That's what the scripture says
all the way through. Now, we could change that. We could say this person is a
lackable individual. We could say we love them, we
could say we appreciate them, we could say this person certainly
makes a contribution to the kingdom of God or to the community, or
he certainly made a contribution to his fellow man and to the
citizens of this country. But don't call him good, he's
not good. And the only reason that we call
men good is because we don't know him who is really good.
You see what I'm saying? Isaiah saw the holiness of God. He said, when King Uzziah died,
I saw the Lord. And I cried, O woe is me! I'm a man of unclean lips. I
dwell among a people of unclean lips. Our concept of good is
determined by our concept of God. And we have lowered the
holiness of God and the law of God. We've brought it down so
far. I picked up a Sunday school lesson.
My wife was studying her Sunday school lesson the other day.
We order some literature. You know, all of us need help. I need help preparing sermons,
and these Sunday school teachers need help preparing their lessons. I hope when we get our classes
organized back here that I can prepare some Sunday school lessons
each week for the teachers, but we need some material with which
to prepare. Well, we ordered some material
from, I think, the best. I've read a lot of Sunday school
literature, and I think we get it from the best place. We ordered
from up in Illinois. But anyway, this Sunday school
lesson was talking about people who were saved and people who
were unsaved. And talked about this person was saved. Now he's
saved. This is talking about balloons.
They had balloons. They had the good balloon and
the bad balloon. And this was for little children. We start
them off this way. It's so ingrained in our old
dead spiritual carcasses that we start our children on this
poison. We teach them from the time they're able to eat pablum,
we teach them this poison, spiritual poison. The good balloon. The
good bloon is saved because he goes to church, and he pays his
time, and he does good deeds for his neighbor. He's the good
bloon. And the bad bloon was Grandpa. No offense to you granddaddies
in the congregation here, but the bad bloon was Grandpa. And
you know why he was unsaved and why he was bad? He chewed tobacco
and drank beer. That's it. That was it. He's going to hell, he's bad,
he's unsaved, he's not a good booze because he chews tobacco
and drinks beer. Well, I'm not selling tobacco,
believe me. I'm not making a commercial for Apple Sun Cured or Golden
Twist or any of the rest of it. I'm not advertising Budweiser. But I'm saying this, if that's
your conception of sin, you're dead in sin. Now, our Lord said
this. He deliberately said this. That
was the Pharisees' conception of sin. Don't eat meat. Don't drink this. Don't drink that. Don't go this
place on the Sabbath day, and this, that, and the other, in
meats and drinks and holy days and Sabbaths and all these different
things. And our Lord said, it's not that which you put in your
mouth that defiles your body. That's not what is corrupting
you and defiling you, it's that which comes out of your heart. Our Lord said to hate is to be
guilty of murder. To lust is to be guilty of adultery. To covet is to be guilty of idolatry. To swear is to be guilty of blasphemy,
to say anything other than yes or no, that's it. To neglect to do good is to sin. And these sins of ours depend
on your generation or your locality. I was reading one of the old
Puritans recently, 300 years ago. Some lady came to church
and she wore sleeves up above her elbow. And they disciplined
her. They kicked her out of church. They called her a streetwalker,
a theater woman, a loose woman. Those old boys would die today,
wouldn't they? This is why Paul exclaimed, O
wretched man that I am. The man who's dead in sin, who's
dead in sin, he's dead in sin and he has no conception whatsoever
of what sin is. He's blind and dumb and dead
and lifeless when it comes to the holiness and strictness of
God's perfect law. You see what I'm saying? Now,
you may be very religious. You may be very religious and
still be dead in sin. Now, secondly, what does it mean
to be dead in sin? It means to be dead to a knowledge
of God's law. Secondly, it's being dead to
the justice of God. the justice of God. Now, in the
pulpit and in the pew, in the highest religious circles, in
the dens of iniquity, in the halls of learning and in the
coal mines, men do not have the faintest idea, the faintest conception
of the justice of God Almighty, God's justice. God said in Numbers
14.8, I will by no means clear the guilty. God will punish sin. Adam learned that. The people
of Noah's day learned that. The people of Sodom learned that.
Jerusalem learned that. The soul that sinneth, it shall
die. There's no way out. There's no
way out. We like to think when our loved
ones pass away, we try to figure out some way to get them in the
kingdom of heaven. But there's no way but Christ.
There's no way but sacrifice. There's no way but substitute,
the way of the cross. That's it. Why? Because God's
just and God will punish sin. And your sins must either be
punished in the body of Christ, in the sacrifice of Christ, in
the death of Christ, or punished in you. God's justice is going
to be honored. And when a man learns the strictness
of God's law, he cries, I have sinned. And when a man learns
the absolute certainty of God's justice, he begins to exclaim,
then, how can I be clean that's born of a woman? How can man
be just with God? How can any of us be just with
God when we're such sinners? Not because we chew tobacco or
drink beer, but because we're crucified in God's Son. But because
we try to take God off His throne. but because we're motivated by
jealousy and envy and selfishness and hatred and malice and covetousness
and ingratitude and all these sins, these horrible, horrible
snakes that live within us. How are we going to be just with
God? How is God going to be just and justify the ungodliness?
But man being dead, dead spiritually to the understanding of God's
holy law, he talks about being perfect. There are actually some
people in this city, not talking about ignorant people, I'm not
talking about folks who haven't got any sense, I'm talking about
people with some brains. There are actually people with
intelligence who claim to be without sin. who claim that they
live without sin, above sin. They're dead in sin. You know
why? If they weren't dead in sin, they would understand the
strictness and holiness of God's law, and they would see their
own sinfulness. And they're those with intelligence
and human understanding that are trying to win favor with
God by what they do. And they don't understand that
God must punish sin. Fine. We preached in your name.
Fine. We cast out devils in your name.
Fine. Now depart from me, I never knew
you. Because you're not saved by preaching or casting out devils
or doing works. You're saved by the righteousness
and blood of Christ. That's how you're saved. But man being dead to the justice
of God, he goes on with his playing church and what we call tinkertoy
religion and boasting of his familiarity with God. Dead. Thirdly, man is dead to the strictness
of God's law. He's dead to the justice, to
any knowledge at all of God's justice. God will punish sin.
I'm not saved this morning and delivered from hell and on my
way to heaven because I'm a preacher or because of what I've done
for God, I'm saved and redeemed from sin, the power of sin, the
practice of sin, the penalty of sin, because Christ died for
my sin. And thirdly, man is dead to the
condition of this world. Now listen to this. If you knew a ship was sinking, What would you do? You'd get
off, wouldn't you? Sure you would, if you knew it
was sinking. If you knew the ship was sinking, you'd get off.
If you knew a company was failing, totally failing, say Armco Steel
Works, you knew it was totally failing. What would you do? You'd say you'd stop. Yes, you
would, if you owned any stock in the company, and you knew
beyond a shadow of a doubt that it would totally fail in the
next year. You wouldn't keep the investment
there. You'd begin looking for employment somewhere else. If
you knew a building was condemned, you were living in an apartment
building, and you knew it was condemned, the foundation was
gone. Any time it may smash to powder,
what would you do? Move out. If you knew that your
comrades were traitors, rebels, revolutionaries, that
the wrath of the government was upon them, and they were going
to get theirs, and that right soon. What would you do? You'd
avoid them. That's right. Well, let me tell you something
that men do not know, who are dead and seen. They do not know
that this world is under the judgment and wrath of God Almighty.
That's what he said, the prince of this world has been judged
already. The whole world system. God said,
heaven and earth shall be destroyed. That's what he says here. Talks
about all these different things in verse 21. Touch not, taste
not, handle not. All these things are to perish
with the using. They're all going to perish.
Not one stone's going to be left standing on another. The whole
world is under the wrath of God, the judgment of God. It's under
condemnation. That's why God gives his people
church fellowship. They need somebody. Everybody
needs somebody. We need love, we need fellowship,
we need friendship. And having nothing in common
with the traitors and rebels of this world who are under God's
wrath, God gives us church fellowship. That we might have something
in common, we might share, we might edify one another, strengthen
one another. He said, love not the world,
neither the things that are in the world. If any man loved this
world, the love of God's not in him. What shall it profit
a man if he gained the whole world? Well, that'd be some treasure,
wouldn't it? It'd be something. But what if
he does? Loses his soul. Perish with the world. Christ
said, you're not of this world, even as I am not of this world,
but natural man's dead to this knowledge, and he seeks the honor
of this world. He seeks the possessions of this
world. His relationship with God may
be shaky, but just so his job's secure. His spiritual condition may be
shaky, but just so his reputation's intact. It's not what God thinks
of, it's what people think of. That's the world. We seek the
honor that comes from this world and not the praise that comes
from God. Else why would a preacher say, I know that's so, but I
can't preach it. My people wouldn't accept it. Lay not up for yourselves treasures
on this earth where moth and rust doth corrupt and thieves
break through and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures
in heaven. For where your treasure is, there's where your heart's
going to be. And I'm just confident that people
who are dead in sin, they have no conception of the strictness
of God's law. They don't understand what sin
is. They don't understand the justice
of God, that He will punish sin, all sin. Every transgression
shall receive a just recompense of reward. And Christ died for our sins.
That's our only hope. He took that justice and satisfied
it. He obeyed that law fully, completely,
in every jot and tittle, every minor commandment. He fulfilled
it. I can't. I don't. I won't. I
never will until he makes me completely like him. That's the
reason Paul said, oh, afraid from the law. I don't know why
these preachers preach the law as a rule of life. Thank God
I'm free from that law. You who would be under the law,
don't you hear the law? You don't hear it? The law will
not be satisfied with your best. It demands perfection. The law
will not be satisfied with your every effort. It demands immaculate
holiness. Don't tamper with the law. We're
not under law, we're under grace. Thank God we're under grace.
Who ever heard of wanting to get back under that slavery of
the law? Christ hath redeemed us from
the curse of the law, the condemnation of the law, the fear of the law.
And if you prove your deadness in sin, if you want anything
to do with it at all, I want nothing to do with it. Nothing
whatsoever. And the justice of God, how I
trembled before His awful, awful justice! But I don't have to
tremble if I'm in Christ, because that wrath and that judgment
has fallen upon His Son, and Christ paid! He paid in full! He paid all of it! God Almighty didn't spare Him
anything. He drank the last bitter drink
from the poison and wrath and judgment of sin. There's nothing
left for me to drink. And in this world, it's under God's condemnation. You accumulate all of it you
can, and you show one thing, you show your total deadness
to its condition. Far more important for me to
be right with God than right with you. But I can't be right
with you unless I'm right with God. And if I'm right with God,
as far as my side, I'll be right with you. You see what I'm saying?
And the accumulation of this world's goods, it's all. The
rust of your gold, the canker of your gold is going to sit
in judgment against you. God's going to destroy all these
things. Maybe tomorrow he'll wipe her out. Maybe tomorrow. And boy, we've been so concerned
about our relationship with this world, and it's under condemnation. This company is bankrupt. This ship is sinking. This building
is condemned. And what we need to do is flee
and find that fellowship of God's people and cultivate that fellowship. that fellowship. Don't let anything
happen to that. Let anything happen to the rest
of it, because it's under condemnation anyway, but don't let anything
happen to the fellowship between you and the Lord and His body,
because that's not under condemnation. That's growing. I'd rather be
a failure in a cause that I know will succeed than to be triumphant
in a cause that's under God's wrath. and judgment. I'd rather
sweep the floors around here because I know God's in this
than govern this state. That's right. You may not believe
that. David said that. He'd rather
be the doorkeeper in God's house than to dwell in the tents of
the wicked. He understood. Boy, I'd rather
be the governor than to be one of the servants and valets around
here. Well, you're dead in sin. You don't understand that this
world's under condemnation, that last of all, to be dead in sin
means that man's dead. He doesn't understand the way
of salvation. Proverbs 14.12 says this, there's
a way that seems right to man, but the end thereof are the ways
of death. It seems right. John 5.43 said,
Christ said, I've come in my Father's name and you receive
me not. Let another come in his own name,
and him you will receive." Man is not only dead to a knowledge
of God's law and dead to a knowledge of God's justice and dead to
a knowledge of the condition of this world which is under
God's wrath, but his darkness and his spiritual deadness is
further revealed in his absolute refusal to be saved on God's
terms. And in God's Word, he insists
on being judged by what he does for God. It may be just a trip
down an aisle. It may be just a handshake. It
may be just a prayer at a mourner's bench. It may be just a soul
he won here or there, or a dollar he gave to the offering. But
he wants God to take note of what he did. He insists on that. He insists on being judged by
his merit, by his works, instead of looking to the cross, instead
of believing. You will not come to me, Christ
said, that you might have life. They'll come to the church, but
not to Christ. They'll come to the pool, but
not to Christ. They'll come to the table, but not to Christ.
They'll crawl on their knees, as I've stood in Mexico so many
times and watched those poor natives crawl on their knees
across those old cobblestone floors to kiss the foot of a
cold, dead piece of marble cut in the form of a woman. Just
kiss the foot of that old coal marble, stone statue. Just keep kissing it. And then
reach in their little purses and get out there a few pesos
and drop it there in the offering plate and light a candle and
put it up there and burn it in front of a statue. They'll do
anything. They won't come to me, he said.
They won't come to me. Oh, Jerusalem, how oft would
I have gathered you unto myself, but you would not. You wouldn't
know. You just wouldn't do it. You'll
do anything. That preacher tell you to crawl
on your knees from here to Chicago on broken glass, and you'll go
to heaven, and you'll take off and give it a try. But you won't
come to Christ. Just look to Christ. Rest in
Him. Trust in Him. They'll come to a vision, they'll
come to an experience, they'll come to the law, they'll come
to a standard, they'll come to a system of works, they'll come
to anything. Punish this body. That's what
he says there in Colossians. He said that's what these fellas
do. They get you to punishing your bodies and sacrificing and
doing all these things. Will worship, voluntary humility,
neglecting of the body, anything in the world but Christ. Look
to Christ. That's what it means to be dead
and sick. Our Father in heaven, Open our eyes, open our ears
and our hearts. Resurrect us from a state of
deadness, spiritual deadness. Give us life. I am come that they might have
life and that they might have it more abundantly. Bring us
into a living, vital, personal union with our Lord Jesus Christ,
who is life. Lord, give us faith. Give us
understanding. Quicken our understanding. Make
us to live to God. We ask it in thy name and for
thy sake. Amen.

What Does It Mean to be Dead In Sin

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What Does It Mean to be Dead In Sin

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