SLJ Fall of Man and Human (Part 2)

Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry coming to you from Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston.

No Compromise Radio is a program dedicated to the ongoing proclamation of Jesus Christ, based on the theme in Galatians 2, verse 5, where the

Apostle Paul said, "'But we did not yield in subjection to them "'for even an hour, so that the truth of the gospel "'would remain with you.'"

In short, if you like smooth, watered -down words to make you simply feel good, this show isn't for you.

By purpose, we are first biblical, but we can also be controversial. Stay tuned for the next 25 minutes as we're called by the divine trumpet to summon the troops for the honor and glory of her

King. Here's our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth. Welcome to No Compromise Radio ministry. My name is

Mike Abendroth, and I'm your host today, and I'm just going to be introducing our next clip.

Today, we have a guest sermon by a guest preacher. I didn't even ask him, I'm just going to do this.

No, I actually asked the estate. I asked his daughter, Grace, if I could play some S. Lewis Johnson on No Compromise Radio because I'm so affected by the

Lord's work through S. Lewis Johnson. I probably listen to eight of his sermons a week. My wife listens to probably seven.

I have to just make sure I listen to one extra. This is part two of a message that began last week.

S. Lewis Johnson, you can go to Believer's Chapel, or you can type in S. Lewis, L -E -W -I -S,

Johnson, and he's one of my favorite Bible teachers. And between MacArthur and S. Lewis Johnson, those two have influenced me the most.

And these eight important truths, one day will be put into a book form that I'm trying to work on as well.

So enjoy part two of S. Lewis Johnson on No Compromise Radio. Now, in the course of this discussion, almost all students of Genesis have noticed the methodology of the serpent.

First of all, he questions the Word of God. He says, "'Yea, hath

God said, "'ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?' And the woman replies, "'Yes, we may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden, "'but of the fruit of the tree in the midst of the garden, "'we shall not eat of that.

"'For God has said, "'He said, you shall not eat of it, "'neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die.'"

So the first thing that he does is to question the divine Word. That's the beginning of the temptation.

Then secondly, having successfully traversed that, Satan, or the serpent, his tool, contradicts the

Word. "'Ye shall not surely die.'" It's very interesting to me, at least, that the first contradiction of the

Word of God has to do with the doctrine of eternal judgment. Isn't that interesting?

Today, we often have people speak very disparagingly of preachers who preach about hell, fire, and damnation.

Well, that's a perfectly biblical topic. In fact, it's a very needed topic. And the

Bible is full of just that teaching. And in case you were to say, "'Well, some of those fellows, "'like the prophets and the apostles, "'were not totally inspired in everything "'that they said, were they?'

We would say they were inspired in what they wrote in Scripture. But it's true, they, in the course of their lives, said things that were not inspired.

Only God can speak unto inspiration all the time. Our Lord Jesus, however, always spoke unto inspiration.

And it's very striking that in the New Testament, the one who speaks most often of eternal hell, fire, and damnation is the

Lord Jesus Christ himself. In fact, the strongest word is a word that is found almost entirely on the lips of Jesus Christ.

So it's striking, isn't it, that the serpent denies, first of all, eternal judgment.

Ye shall not surely die. But then he has a third step.

And his third step is to malign the author himself. In effect, what he has done is to contradict the word of God.

And he is aiming, of course, at genocide. Incidentally, the Senate just a few days ago ratified the

Genocide Treaty. I think a mistake, probably. But at any rate, they ratified the

Genocide Treaty. The one who originally was engaged in genocide, in the attempted genocide, was the serpent himself.

For he would slay the whole human race, so far as its spiritual future is concerned.

And the recovery of it by the Lord God, the recovery of the race from genocide, will require ultimately theocide.

That is, the sacrifice of the second person of the eternal trinity, the

Lord Jesus Christ himself. But I notice when, after he has said, you shall not surely die, he engages in what we would call a little bit of well poisoning.

He says, God knows that in the day you eat of it, your eyes shall be opened and you shall be as God.

You will know good and evil. So God doesn't want you to learn his recipes.

He doesn't want you to learn his tricks. Why, after all, if you learn his tricks and if you learn his recipes, then you will be like God.

And he wants to keep that authority for himself. So not only has he questioned the word and denied the word, but he's maligned the author of the word.

And Eve is listening. Eve reminds me of a rabbit in the presence of a serpent, mesmerized by the serpent.

And so mesmerized by the devil, listening to a creature rather than a creator, following impressions, not instructions from the word of God, seeking what so many preachers talk about today, self -fulfillment and not the glory of God.

She inclined to evil and within her heart, there came forth the evil that plunged her into what was, were it not for the redeeming work of Christ, ultimate spiritual destruction.

Now, of course she gave to Adam. Nothing happened incidentally when Eve sinned.

She sinned in her heart. Then from that inclination, there came the volition to take of the fruit and the volition issued in the action of actually taking it.

Nothing happened. But when she gave to Adam and he took of the fruit and he ate, then, if you'll pardon the expression, all hell broke loose because Adam was the covenantal head.

And when Adam sinned, then we read, then the eyes of them both were opened and they saw that they were naked.

He's the covenantal head. And so that's the key point.

And my friend, they have both fallen, but they are both still religious.

There are people who identify a right relationship with God, with religion, but they are still religious.

They believe in the existence of God. In fact, they believe a lot of things about God and they know a lot of things about God that even you and I do not know, but they are lost sinners.

To be religious is not to be related to God. Now, here is then the enigma of life, the fall of man.

What are the consequences? Well, we have talked often in Believer's Chapel about the consequences, and so I'm going to do this rather quickly.

We have about 15 minutes, providing I steal three from that clock in the back, which is a little fast.

It's difficult for modern man to recognize sin because sin is uncomplimentary.

We don't like things that are uncomplimentary. Further, it's difficult for man to understand sin because it's best seen in the context of the holiness of God.

And Isaiah, who goes into the temple and sees that vision of the Lord God high and lifted up, is the man who immediately senses the evil and wickedness and sin of his being.

And so when man is in the presence of God, he best understands how unholy he is.

The Holy One of Israel is the one whose very being creates within us the sense of our sin.

When Peter was in the boat with the Lord Jesus on the Sea of Galilee, and the great load of fish was taken out of the water, he sensed immediately that he's not in that boat simply with Jesus of Nazareth, but with the

Lord God of Israel. And so then he cries out, "'Depart from me, for I am a sinful man,

O Lord.'" In the presence of God, we learn how unholy we are.

Furthermore, sin today has been secularized. So when we think of sin today, the average

American, what does he think about? Well, perhaps an offense against society and its customs, an offense against decency, usually related to some form of sexual sin or some kind of human violence.

But we rarely, if ever, unless we're acquainted with the Word of God, think of sin as an offense against God.

While the very idea would be ruled out of our classrooms, to think of sin as an offense against God is unconstitutional in the

United States of America. That's how far we have gone from the teaching of Holy Scripture.

Sin is an offense against a holy God. That's the essential nature of sin.

Now, if we were to define it, we would say simply that it is unbelief or disobedience of God that leads to self -assertion against God.

And issuing in acts of immorality. Obviously, if a person denies the first and greatest commandment, thou shall love the

Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, with all thy mind, you'll not be expected to obey the second and thy neighbor as thyself.

So sin then is unbelief or disobedience that results in rebellion against God and issues in specific acts of immorality.

What are the consequences? Well, I say I suggest there are four. First of all,

Adam's sin is imputed to the race. Every single individual who is born into this created world with Adam's sin imputed to him, reckoned to him.

Later on, we'll study why this is a gracious arrangement of God. In spite of the fact that many people complain bitterly about why should

I be subject to the penalty caused by Adam's sin?

We'll explain that and I think try to show and I believe successfully that that was a gracious arrangement on the part of God.

Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15, 21 and 22, for since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead.

For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.

For as in Adam all die. By the gracious plan of federal headship,

God works. Without representation, Adam in the first case,

Christ in the second, the human race might have perished forever. As James Henley Thornwell in one of his works puts it, if we cannot sin in another, we cannot be redeemed.

By another. But thank God we are able to sin in Adam and have sinned in Adam and therefore we can be redeemed in another, the

Lord Jesus Christ. Now I say there are people who object to this and they want to leave it on the theological level.

And after all, we all have questions about it, but I assure you that if you study the scriptures, you will come to a sense of amazement at the wisdom of God, at the plan he has devised.

But at any rate, assuming then that you don't understand this, I only ask you to consider it empirically.

Everybody has died. From the day of Adam who died and Eve who died, down to the present day, except for one or two rare exceptions in which

God specifically worked, Elijah, for example, and so on.

Many have died and all of your ancestors who lived a century or two ago have died.

Your immediate family is in process of dying and you are in process of dying.

Your name will appear on the obituary pages and there will be something about you and about your family and about your funeral services.

That is empirically true. Every one of us, if Christ does not return, shall die.

God's covenant is being carried out according to his will.

So the sin of Adam is imputed to the race. The second thing that has come as a consequence of the fall is the inheritance of original sin.

Paul states in Ephesians chapter two and verse three that we are by nature the children of wrath.

Now, what does original sin involve? That actually is a term that links the corruption of our nature with the

Garden of Eden. That's why it's called original sin. That is, it's a consequence of Adam's sin, of the original sin.

We inherit not only condemnation immediately from the sin of Adam, but we also have a sinful nature which we derive from Adam.

It involves guilt, liability to punishment. It involves pollution.

It's the explanation of the statement the psalmist makes when he says, God is not in all their thoughts.

Men are, as we say, totally depraved. Now, when we say man is totally depraved, we are using a term that refers to the pervasiveness of sin.

Men are totally depraved in that sense. Now, let us not misunderstand.

We do not mean that man is as bad as he can be, necessarily. Some are approaching it, it seems, from time to time.

But nevertheless, we are not as bad as we can be. What total depravity means is that sin has touched all of the parts of our being, our mind, our emotions, our will.

To put it in another way, as John Gerstner has often put it, total depravity refers to the corruption of the total human nature, not the total corruption of human nature.

To the corruption of the total human nature, not the total corruption of human nature.

That should be plain to us, but I repeat it in case some have never heard one discuss that point.

It's not the most popular doctrine in the world. One of the illustrations that Dr.

Ironside used to use was a story about John Cook, the great Boston lecturer of the latter half of the 19th century.

He illustrated total depravity, which he believed in this way. He said he had at his home a very beautiful and valuable clock.

It had an exceedingly handsome case, a very fine set of works.

You would be astonished and surprised and pleased to open up the back of that clock and see the works of that clock.

Furthermore, it had a nice appearing dial and elegantly finished hands.

But it was, though an altogether good clock to look upon, it had one fault.

It simply would not or could not keep time. It had been gone over by different clockmakers.

They had done the best that they could, but no one had been able to correct this fault. And Mr.

Cook said, as a timepiece, it was totally depraved. Now in that sense, we are totally depraved.

Corruption has touched our total nature. Our minds are blinded.

Our wills are rebellious. Our emotions are corrupt. Now, of course, we may not manifest that in society, but nevertheless, deep down within, everything is turned towards self.

Self -regarding individuals we are. Just analyze yourself.

I wish we had time to develop that further. The third of the consequences is spiritual inability.

In John chapter six and verse 44, the Lord Jesus said, no man can come to me except the

Father which hath sent me draw him. Our wills are free, but we are not.

And the result is that we have no free will. As a faculty, we have a will.

We exercise our wills and we exercise our wills freely in the sense that we do what we want to do.

But unfortunately, our nature is touched by sin. And so when we say we have no free will, we don't mean we don't have a will.

We do have a will and we exercise our will and by itself, it is free, but the will is a secondary part of our being.

We exercise our wills according to our nature, our disposition and our disposition is touched by sin.

And so our decisions are negative to the will of God. Now, this is such a common doctrine that a hundred years ago in evangelical churches, you could pass by at this point and say nothing more about it, but we are living in 1986.

Some of you are still in 85, but some of us are in 86. And we have to explain things like this because it's thought to be a new doctrine to say that we do not have a free will in the spiritual sense.

Listen to Luther. If any man doth ascribe ought of salvation, even the very least to the free will of man, he knoweth nothing of grace and he hath not learnt

Jesus Christ a right. Listen to the 39 articles of the

Anglican church. The condition of man after the fall of Adam is such that he cannot turn and prepare himself by his own natural strength and good works to faith and calling upon God.

Listen to the book of common prayer. Oh, almighty God, who alone canst order the unruly wills and affections of sinful men.

Listen to the Presbyterian Westminster confession and the London Baptist confessions.

Man by his fall into sin hath wholly lost all ability of will to any spiritual good accompanying salvation.

So as a natural man being altogether averse from that good and dead in sin is not able by his own strength to convert himself or to prepare himself thereto.

The Belgian confession, I pass by for the simple lack of time. George Whitefield, the greatest evangelist that America has ever listened to said,

I hope we shall catch fire from each other and that there will be a holy emulation amongst us which shall most debase man and exalt the

Lord Jesus. Nothing but the doctrines of the Reformation can do this. All others leave free will in man and make him in part at least a savior unto himself.

My soul come not thou near the secret of those who teach such things.

I know Christ is all in all, man is nothing. He hath a free will to go to hell, but none to go to heaven till God worketh in him to will and to do of his good pleasure.

I'm sorry, I have a lovely story and comment to say to you but I cannot do it for lack of time.

But listen to the New Testament. No man can come to me except the

Father which has sent me draw him. Listen to Paul in 1 Corinthians 2 .14.

The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, their foolishness to him, neither can he know them.

They are spiritually discerned. No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Abendroth is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston.

Bethlehem Bible Church is a Bible teaching church firmly committed to unleashing the life transforming power of God's word through verse by verse exposition of the sacred text.

Please come and join us. Our service times are Sunday morning at 1015 and in the evening at six. We're right on route 110 in West Boylston.

You can check us out online at bbchurch .org or by phone at 508 -835 -3400.

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