Total Depravity WOTC 2025

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He asked to do this talk because of how important it is, right?

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Pastor Bruce called me and said, listen, I want you to do the presentation on total depravity. You're the best representative of total depravity we have.

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So like we say in my church, don't mess with total depravity, it's the only doctrine I get right. So my goal today is to make a biblical argument for the deadness of man in sin and his inability apart from the

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Holy Spirit to do anything that would cause or incline God to save him.

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This is vital to the theological system called Calvinism. And this is the one doctrine upon which all of the others hinge.

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If I get this wrong, the rest of the doctrines won't prove consistent and won't make sense because they stand or fall as a unit.

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No pressure. But if I do get this right and I show the truth of total depravity, then the logical conclusion of Calvinism is true.

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One preacher said, tell me what you believe about total depravity and I'll tell you what you believe about the rest of the

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Bible. This is how vitally important this doctrine is to our theology and our worldview.

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So tonight, the question for us is, is man dead in his sins and transgressions, unable to do anything good spiritually, exercise faith, belief, and in need of a spiritual resurrection?

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Or is man just a little sick, wounded, slightly alive, able to do some spiritual good, and just in need of some medicine?

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It's my position, and I believe it's the Bible's position, that man is spiritually dead. He cannot exercise faith and is in need of an actual resurrection, not medicine.

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Humanity's situation is an extremely dire one. So tonight, what I want to do, this afternoon

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I want to do, is explain what total depravity is, where it is in Scripture, and why it matters.

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So we're going to talk about what it is, where it is, and why does it matter. So let's start off by defining what total depravity is.

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As a consequence of the fall of man, every person is born into the world with a morally corrupt, bent towards evil, enslaved to sin, and is, apart from the saving grace of God, unable to choose that which is spiritually good, to follow

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God or to choose to turn to Christ in faith for salvation. It entails that sin is pervasive, and has affected every area of our being, our will, our intellect, our emotions.

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We are alive physically, alive to our flesh alone, and dead spiritually, dead to the things of the spirit.

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The Westminster Confession states it like this, Man, by his fall into a state of sin, has wholly lost all ability of will to any spiritual good accompanying salvation.

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

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Total depravity can also rightly be called the doctrine of man's total inability.

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We have an inability because of our condition. One last definition by Lorraine Bettman, Distinguishes total depravity by saying what it is not.

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So, total depravity, or total inability, which declares that men are dead in sin, does not mean that all men are equally bad, or as bad as you could be, nor that any man is as bad as he possibly could be, nor that any human nature is evil in itself, nor that man's spirit is inactive.

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They do have spirits, but they are fallen. So, what it does mean is that since the fall, man rests under the curse of God, and that he is actuated, in other words, motivated by a sin nature, to wrong principles and desires, and that he is wholly unable to love

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God or do anything meriting salvation. Since the fall, man is utterly disposed, disabled, and made opposite to all good, and wholly inclined to evil.

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He possesses a fixed bias of the will against God, and instinctively and willingly turns to evil.

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So, the inability under which he labors is not an inability to exercise choice, but an inability to exercise good choices.

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So, this is not a question of free will, this is a question of good will.

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If your will is corrupt, corruption will follow out of it. If your will is good, good will flow from it.

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So, man can and will make the choices he wants, freely. But here's the problem.

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He is not willing or able to make holy or righteous choices. Why? Because his choices are motivated by a corrupt will.

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More so, man's will is never credited with affecting salvation or even wanting salvation.

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In fact, man's will is specifically excluded from the equation. In John 1 .13, John says,

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Those who were born, not of blood, not of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.

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Romans 6 .9 .16 So then, it, salvation, depends not on human will or exertion, but on God who has mercy.

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So, right off the bat, man's will is excluded from the equation. And that's good news.

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Imagine if we were left to our own will. So, total depravity states that we're alive to the flesh, but spiritually dead towards God.

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Our wills are bent, inclined toward evil, affected by sin such that we desire sinful things.

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We do not and will not desire God because that's contrary to our fallen nature. So much so that we need a power outside of us to be rescued.

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We need a spiritual resurrection or a new birth. Right? If the deadness and sin is just figurative, well, is the resurrection figurative?

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Or is it actual? So, we need a spiritual resurrection or a new birth. You see, total depravity is not tough to understand.

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It's tough to swallow. How many parents do we have here tonight? Okay. How many of you had a teacher kids had a lie?

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Nope. How many of you had a teacher kids how to be selfish? How to fight with their siblings?

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How many of you had a teacher kids how to talk back? Me neither. That's just four examples out of my house this week.

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You see, every one of your children was born with the effects of depravity ingrained in them.

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We've all experienced the effects of total depravity. How do you know? You don't have to teach your kids how to sin.

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It comes naturally because it's their nature. So, now that we know what total depravity is and isn't, where can we find this in the scriptures?

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Listen to me. None of what I tell you matters unless it's found in the scriptures.

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Remember. Okay? So, if it comes from the scriptures, like Jason said, it doesn't matter what

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I believe. It matters what the scripture teaches. Let's start with Jesus. Good start, right?

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He would explain total depravity like this. The nature of man's heart. Mark 7, 21. For from within, out of the heart of man, comes evil thoughts, sexual immorality, death, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness.

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All these things come from within and they defile a person. He never said any good comes out of the heart.

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Ever. He would also say in the Gospel of John that no one can come to me unless they are drawn by the

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Father. In other words, we are unable to come, to believe, to trust in Jesus without God the

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Father drawing us. And this is what Pastor Mike taught last night. In fact, it moved me when

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I heard all the I wills and the certainty of Jesus in his talks. Why? Because it coincides with something

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I've been teaching for so long and I never made this connection. In John 6 we hear the

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I wills of Jesus. Right? When Jesus says I will do something, it's a certainty.

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So, in Ezekiel 36 and 37, there are numerous I will statements by God and only two you will statements by man.

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Ezekiel 36. Therefore say to the house of Israel, thus says the Lord God. It is not for your sake,

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O house of Israel, that I am about to act. So, this is not about you. But for the sake of my holy name, which you have profaned among the nations.

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So, I'm going to act to protect my reputation, not yours. And I will vindicate the holiness of my great name, which has been profaned among the nations.

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And which you have profaned among them. I will take you from the nations and gather you from all the countries.

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I will bring you into your own land. I will sprinkle you with clean water. And you shall be clean for your own uncleannesses.

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From all the idols, I will cleanse you. I will give you a new heart. And a new spirit I will put within you.

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I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my spirit in you.

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And I will cause you to walk in my stature and be careful to obey all my rules. You shall dwell in the land that I gave your father.

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And you shall be my people. And I will be your God. And I will deliver you from all your uncleanness. And I will summon the grain and make it abundant.

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I will make the fruit of the tree and increase of the field abundant. That you may never again suffer the disgrace of famine among the nations.

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This is about than the two heroes. You will remember your evil ways and your deeds that were not good.

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And you will loathe yourself for your iniquities and your abominations. There's like 15 idols of God.

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He's going to do all those. And you know what's going to happen? You're going to hate your sin. You're going to hate your sin.

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You're going to loathe yourself. You're going to flee Christ. It's not for your sake that I will act, declares the

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Lord. Let that be known to you. Be ashamed and confounded of your ways. Ezekiel go on. In Ezekiel 37.

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This is the dry dead men's bones. Dry dead men. Okay?

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What's the picture? They're dead. He says, and I will lay sins on you.

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I will cause flesh to come upon you and cover your skin. And put breath in you.

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And you shall live. You shall know that I am the Lord. So when God does that, when

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God puts his spirit on them, they live. Why? Because they're dead. He breathed on them life.

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Jeremiah 31. This is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the

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Lord. I will put my law within them. I will write it on their hearts. I will be their God.

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They shall be my people. No longer shall each one teach each other and his brother. For they shall all know me.

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For I will forgive their iniquity. And I will remember their sin no more. Friends, I don't want free will.

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I want God's will. I want God's will. Right? Listen.

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If you believe that Jesus is putting this out there for you to pick up and accept, you are calling

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Jesus a salesman and not a savior. He doesn't come to offer a bargain.

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And you work the circles to go 90. He either is a savior or he is a salesman.

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There is no middle ground. If he's called the savior, then he does what he's supposed to do.

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Let me ask you something. Do you believe in the principle of reaping and sowing? Jesus told you, you're going to reap what you sow.

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If Jesus died for every single person on that cross like Mike told us he doesn't, if he died for every single person on that cross and not all of them go to heaven, he did not reap what he sowed.

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That's right. He lost them. That's right. No. No. That's an imperfect savior.

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I got to get back to Jesus. That was because Mike McCarthy preached that good message to us.

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He had an extra slide and an extra page. And I know I'm the only thing that stands between you and Devin, so please bear with me.

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Let's get back to Jesus. He tells us, everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin.

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But he whom the Son sets free is free indeed. That's really odd if you have completely free will.

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You're a slave to sin. Better yet, he's talking to the Jews in John chapter 8.

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And he's talking to the Jew, and you know what the Jew says to him? We've never been slaves of anyone. It's like, do you

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Bible? But you were slaves in Egypt. You were slaves to the

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Assyrians. You were slaves to the Babylonians. You were slaves to the Persians. You're under Roman occupation.

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You're under Assyrian slavery right now. We've never been slaves of anyone. Depravity can lead to self -perception.

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You can think, no, I'm not a slave. Jesus basically tells us that our hearts manufacture, produce unrighteous desires and defile us.

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So much so that we're unable to come to him. Why? We're slaves of sin. We're defiled, impotent to believe, and need to be set free from our insane slavery.

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Now when I say it's our nature, right? I'm referring to what we call the root or the core of our being.

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What makes us desire what we desire and think what we think. Our immaterial self. And I can state with complete confidence that everyone in here has the sinful desires that Jesus described in Mark 27, 21.

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Why? Not because we're smart or prophetic. But because the Bible says the universal condition of all mankind is sinful as a whole.

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See that? Friends, the tea is true. It's true. Total depravity is the reality of the world we live in.

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Don't believe me, I'm going to give you homework. When you go home, turn on the news. If that doesn't work, drive on a long island expressway.

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You'll see total depravity. We're all born in a fallen state inherited from our older brother

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Adam. With our hearts inclined toward evil. We have a soul in the material self, but it's only alive to the flesh.

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That's all it knows. That's all it desires. That's all it recognizes, sees, and wants to please the flesh.

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Genesis 6, 5 tells us that God saw that the intentions of man's heart was only evil continually.

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Man's resume is persistent evil and pervasive wickedness.

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Next, listen to how the prophet Jeremiah describes the state of our nature. Jeremiah 13, 23.

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Can the Ethiopian change his skin or the leopard change his spots? Then neither can you do good or accustomed to doing evil.

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That's a very interesting illustration he uses. So an Ethiopian is a black man.

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Can he change the color of his skin? No, it's his nature. A leopard, can he change his spots?

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No, it's his nature. And you and I cannot do good.

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Why? Because we're accustomed to doing evil. It's our nature. Here's what

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Jeremiah says about our ability to do good. We can't. You can't.

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So you think, let me ask you this. Do you think that your nature influences your choices? Do you?

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Somebody shake their head yes or no. Okay, good. I know dinner's coming, relax. Does your nature impact the choices you make?

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Absolutely. Look at it this way. A lion by nature desires to eat meat, not salad.

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Why? He's a carnivore. That's his nature. He eats meat.

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Given a choice, would the lion choose to eat Caesar salad or just Caesar?

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Right? The lion's nature governs his desires.

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The same is true of you. So then it's not your choices that are the real problem, it's your nature.

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Your choices are the byproduct of your nature. You have free choice, but you don't have a free good will.

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Your will is bent, inclined towards evil. It's not good. Ephesians 2. Ephesians 2 .3.

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You are by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. Remember, not a question of free will, but of good will.

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If your heart is fallen, then sinful evil choices will follow. Therefore, your heart, the core of your being, needs to be changed.

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But that cannot be brought about by your own choice. A leopard can't change his spots, and a zebra can't change his stripes.

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So let's say you're a Christian brother or sister here, but maybe you disagree with me on total depravity.

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However, I'm guessing that we would both stand against people trying to redefine

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God's creation of a man and a woman. Right? Amen? Everybody say amen to that? You and I would agree that a man cannot become a woman and a woman cannot become a man.

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A man cannot simply become a woman by willing it to happen. And a woman can't simply become a man by making a mere choice.

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You are by nature a man or by nature a woman. No choice you make can change that.

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In the same way, no amount of choices we make can change our sinful disposition, our nature.

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Has anybody in India kept the resolutions you made on New Year's? You really want to trust in your own will, turn over a new leaf?

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You and I are... You better listen.

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He touched me. The Apostle Paul, he agonizes.

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So we talked about Jesus, we talked about Jeremiah. The Apostle Paul agonizes with this sin nature in Romans 7 .14.

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I am of the flesh, so will I do sin. Try to not understand my own actions. Try to not do what

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I want when I do the very thing I hate. For I know that nothing good dwells in me that is in my flesh.

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For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out.

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So I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. That's a real odd thing to say if you have free will.

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I'll just choose to do good. Paul says, I can't. What I want to do good, evil is right there with me.

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There's something restraining my choices. It's because the core of our being is polluted and needs to be changed first in order to bring forth righteousness.

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To bring forth good things. We are sinners by birth and by nature, so we sin because it's our nature.

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The Bible tells us that flesh gives birth to flesh, so we're descendants of Adam. The Apostle Paul would say, those who are in the flesh cannot please

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God. If any change is going to happen to our soul, God must intervene and do the work.

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We were born into this world as sinners, separated from God, and we need to be born again. Born from above, by the

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Spirit, from the second Adam. The only Adam who lived perfectly.

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So as flesh gives birth to flesh, so also the Spirit gives birth to spirit. We are born physically, but we need to be reborn spiritually.

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Another very important scripture for us to consider is Ephesians 2. Where Paul explains that we're dead in our sins.

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And you were dead in the trespasses of your sins in which you once walked, following the course of the world.

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The prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now working the sons of disobedience. Among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh.

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Carrying out the desires of the body and the mind. We were by nature, children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.

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By nature. Now the word for dead here is necros. And the

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Latin dictionary defines it as pertaining to being unable to respond to any impulse.

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Or to perform some function. Unable, ineffective, dead, powerless. So you've got to ask us, is that figurative or actual?

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If it's not, if it's figurative, then the resurrection is figurative. Paul tells us that we're not sick, or somewhat dead, or mostly dead like Miracle Max and Princess Bride.

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But actually dead. Not slightly alive. We're so dead in sins and trespasses that we are by nature children of wrath.

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God's wrath abides on those who are not spiritually alive. Remember, it's only the spirit that what?

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Gives life. So if the spirit's present, what is he doing? Is he there to give life, or give you an opportunity?

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Right? Is it the grace of opportunity, or the grace of salvation? New life. It's only the spirit that gives life.

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The flesh profits us nothing. We are very much alive to the flesh and its desires, but that gets us nowhere spiritually.

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Jesus says, apart from me, you can do nothing. No thing.

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Right? Apart. Separated from. We cannot do anything good. Why can't we do anything spiritually good?

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It's because every faculty and ability of man, our mind, our hearts, our soul, has been affected.

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So rather than me telling you, I'll let Paul tell you as he quotes a number of Old Testament scriptures to comply.

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Ready? This is the resume of mankind. As it is written, none is righteous, no, not one.

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Reversal and righteousness. No one understands. Our minds have been affected. No one sees God. Our desire to follow

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Him has been affected. All have turned aside. Our will has been affected so that we run from God.

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Together we have become worthless. That doesn't mean we're not of value. Morally bankrupt we are.

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No one does good, not even one. Our actions are unrighteous. Their throat is an open grave.

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They use their tongues to deceive. Our speech is deadly and deceptive. The venom of asps, snakes grows under their lips.

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Our tongues are poisonous, set on fire by hell. Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness. Our mouths blaspheme

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God. Their feet are swift to shed blood. We're quicker to hate than to love, even to the point of murder.

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In their paths are ruin and misery. Our direction is destruction. And the way of peace they have not known.

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We have no peace with God. We are in enmity with Him. Do you know what enmity is?

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That's mad on steroids. It's bad. You are in enmity with God. There is no fear of God before their eyes.

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Our conscience is seared. That's the resume of all mankind.

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Give yourselves a round of applause. Both you and I. That's our resume, not just Hitler.

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That includes us. Does this sound like we're a little sick? Or that we're comprehensively dead in sin?

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Hole is repeating what the Old Testament says about our condition in the New Testament. So the ongoing condition of humanity in both the

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Old Testament and the New Testament is one of spiritual deadness. All humanity is in bondage to sin.

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Old Testament and New Testament. Is this tough to understand or tough to swallow? But there is hope for us.

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Because Jesus also says, If the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed. You must be set free by Jesus.

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Otherwise, you're still in bondage to your sin and unable to please God. Again, what

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Paul is telling us in Romans 3 is that sin cripples every part of us to the very core of our being.

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The word heart comes from the word cardiac arrest. It means heart. So when I say heart,

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I'm speaking about the core of our being. Our heart, our core, our will, intellect, and emotions.

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All of it has been corrupted. Spoiled by sin to the point we can't even understand, do good, or fear

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God. We're dead to the things of God. Our condition is such that every faculty we have has been tainted by sin.

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There is no part of us that remain clean or sin free. But this doesn't mean that you or anyone else are as sinful as they could be.

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You are to pray extensively, as widely as possible, but not exhaustively, as intensely as possible.

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In his book, Mere Calvinism, Jim Orrick puts it like this. The total, in total depravity, refers to total distribution, not total saturation.

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The sin is distributed over every aspect of our being, but we're not saturated in sin.

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So it's not total saturation, but total distribution. Sin has affected every area of our being and rendered all of our choices evil.

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So far we've heard from Jesus, Jeremiah, and Paul about our sinful condition and the desires of our unregenerate hearts.

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They've told us where these desires come from. So we know where total depravity is, and we know where it is in Scripture.

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Now I want to talk about why it matters. This matters significantly because it determines where the solution to the problem comes from.

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Does the solution to the problem come from inside simple mankind, or from the outside, from God?

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This is what we argue with in apologetics when we talk about the world being created. Like, well, nature is composed of time, space, and matter.

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So that came into existence. The cause of time, space, and matter can't be nature, because time, space, and matter is nature.

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Nature would have had to exist in order to create nature. So whatever created nature must be above nature or supernatural.

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We need supernatural creation to get us.

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So, total depravity is also known as man's inability. Man has the natural capacity to be righteous, but not the spiritual capacity.

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We're physically alive, but spiritually dead. And here's where I want to affirm that all living, breathing human beings are created in the image of God.

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We are of infinite worth and value. There is no one human being that if they came through that door, we would say, no, you can't be here.

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We want them to hear the gospel. We need to continually hear the gospel. Our problem is that this image that we have has been disfigured, marred, polluted.

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We enter this world internally floored, separated from life in Christ, dead in sin, and in need of restoration.

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Here's why it matters. Ask yourself, can physically dead people do anything physical? Thank you.

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It's scaring me. Somebody got to get coffee, bring the machine in. Can dead people do jumping jacks?

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Sit ups? Some alive people. Can dead people wiggle their toes?

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No. Physically, you can't do those things if you're dead. Now, what if you're spiritually dead?

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Can you carry out any kind of spiritual activity if you're spiritually dead? No. The Bible says, without faith, you cannot please

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God. Since trusting in Jesus, exercising faith is a spiritual action, and I'm spiritually dead,

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I cannot do that on my own. Colossians 2 .13 says, and you who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh,

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God made alive. He didn't wait for you to ask. I think that was funny.

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If you're spiritually dead, you need to be made alive in the spirit first. Jesus affirms this when he says, this is why

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I told you no one can, ability, come to me unless it's granted to him by the Father.

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Faith is granted to us. It's a gift because spiritually dead people can't muster up spiritual faith on their own.

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Peter teaches this, 2 Peter 1 .1, write this down. To those who have received a faith of the same kind as ours.

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The word received here means to obtain by lot. Like casting lots.

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You've received, you've been given faith. Just like the Old Testament priests. That's a different sermon.

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So just like the Old Testament priests were chosen, we've been given faith. We've been chosen.

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This is why it matters. And this is going to help us understand what God has to do to us.

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Not with our help or by us. This will make the rest of the doctrines of grace make sense.

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And guess what? It will give all the glory to God. If you hold, if you hold that God saves you by what you do, then you hold to the unscriptural position that God helps those who help themselves.

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You know, God helps those who help themselves. That's found in Numbers 3 .15. It can be first manipulations, chapter 2.

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Again, we're bound by our nature as sinners. In the same way,

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Ethiopians and Leopards and Zebras are bound by their nature. Ethiopians cannot change the color of their skin.

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Leopards cannot change their spots. Zebras can't change their stripes. And neither can sinners like us will to do spiritual good.

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There is only one thing a dead person can do. Rot. The King James Version said, he stinketh.

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There's only one thing a dead person does. He sinks. So the scriptures continually point to man's inability when it comes to doing spiritual things.

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This will help determine where the spiritual action necessary for life comes from.

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Again, this will highlight why this doctrine matters so much. So now,

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I like Robert Raymond. He has a systematic theology. And I call these the ten acts of scripture.

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Now, he came up with eight of them, and I added two. So, first, mankind by nature cannot bring forth good fruit.

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For no good tree bears bad fruit, nor does a bad tree bear good fruit. Man by nature cannot hear

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Christ's words that they may have life. Why do you not understand what I'm saying? It's because you cannot hear my word.

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Man by nature cannot submit themselves to the law of God. For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, at enmity with God.

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It does not submit to God's law. Indeed, it cannot. Man by nature cannot please

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God. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God. Man by nature cannot discern the truths of the

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Spirit of God. A natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit, for they are folly to him. He cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned.

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Man by nature cannot confess from the heart Jesus is Lord. Therefore, I want you to understand, you cannot say

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Jesus is Lord, except by the Holy Spirit. Man by nature cannot control the tongue.

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But no human being can tame the tongue, until the rest of his people are full of deadly poison. Man by nature cannot come to Christ.

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No one can come to me, unless the Father who sent me draws him. Man by nature cannot receive the Holy Spirit. Even the

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Spirit of truth whom the world cannot receive. Because it neither sees him, nor knows him.

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Man by nature cannot see, understand the Kingdom of God, unless they are born again. Jesus said, truly, truly,

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I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see or understand the Kingdom of God.

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So listen, in your fallen condition, you cannot bear fruit. You cannot hear

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Christ's words. You cannot submit to God's law. You cannot please God. You cannot understand spiritual truths.

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You cannot confess Jesus is Lord. You cannot control your tongue. You cannot come to Jesus. You cannot receive the

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Holy Spirit. Nor can you understand or see the Kingdom of God. So much for that Tony Robbins book you wrote.

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As you can see, our heart and our inability is the problem, not the solution.

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We are unable to change ourselves. A part of the problem is the problem of the heart.

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The world's solution to the problem is self -help. The bookstores are filled with self -help stuff.

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Unleash the power within. Friends, if you unleash the power within, biblically that will make the problem worse, not better.

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That's right. Okay? All hearts have a sinful disposition. Only evil continually.

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And our enmity with God. If there is a solution, it must come from outside of ourselves.

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Again, is this tough to understand? Or just tough to swallow? Finally, if that's not enough,

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Jesus puts the nail in the coffin. Pun intended. See, that's your cue to laugh.

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You laugh when I'm not expecting it. And I'm like, here it is. It's a dad joke.

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So Jesus puts the nail in the coffin. And tells us that salvation is impossible with men.

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God has to act to raise the dead sinner to life in order to have salvation. And this particular passage

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I'm going to read is repeated three times as it appears in all three synodic gospels. Jesus says,

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I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.

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When the disciples heard this, they were greatly astonished, saying, who then can be saved?

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Jesus looks at them and said, with man, this is impossible. But with God, all things are possible.

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With man, salvation is impossible. With God, salvation is possible.

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By the way, with God doesn't mean they have any cooperation with God. Dead men don't cooperate.

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We've established they're dead. They're stinking. Interestingly, I looked up the

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Greek translation of the word here for impossible. It's allunitos.

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And I was blown away at what I found. Do you know what the word allunitos means? Impossible. Yeah. Now this same word, impossible, allunitos, is also used in Hebrews 6 .18

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where it says, it is impossible for God to lie. So is it possible for God to lie?

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No. Then neither is salvation possible in the hands of man or with man.

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This means that salvation based on man's effort, choice, or cooperation must be impossible for two very important reasons.

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First, impossible means impossible. With man, there is no possibility of salvation.

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And second, since it's impossible for God to lie and the scriptures are God -breathed, he's the one who said salvation is impossible with man.

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Therefore, it must be allunitos, impossible. If you deny allunitos, you might be a lunatic.

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In the sinful heart of man, salvation is an impossibility. He needs help from the outside.

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Only in the sovereign hands and ability of God is salvation possible.

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Remember, Jesus also said this to his grumbling followers. The flesh profits us nothing. It's the spirit that gives life.

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We need the spirit. The flesh is of no help at all. Our solution to this problem of our sinful nature will hinge upon what we believe about total depravity.

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This is why it matters. So there are three terms in the New Testament that describe a Christian. One, born again.

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Two, new creation. And three, resurrected. And none of those three terms imply action upon our heart or by ourselves.

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They're not self -help. We are the passive recipients of the action that's being done.

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Let's look at them. First, the term born again. Born again implies new life, coming into existence, coming into the world.

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You didn't exist and now you do. What did any of you have to do with your physical birth? Nothing!

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You would have had to exist prior to you being born in order to do that. The contradiction. So similarly, in being born again, born from above, we can ask, what did we have to do with that?

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Jesus says something very important about mankind when he's speaking specifically about the new birth. Again, flesh gives birth to flesh, but spirit gives birth to spirit.

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It's the spirit that brings life. It's the spirit that brings the birth. Can a human being in the flesh who's dead spiritually give birth to himself spiritually?

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No. The agent of the new birth in the scripture is the Holy Spirit alone without the help of your flesh, which is no help at all.

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John Samson in his book, The Twelve Whatabouts, says the new birth is not the improvement of the old nature, but the creation of an entirely new one.

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It's a birth, a new birth. And like the first one we experienced, it did not occur because of our decision to be born.

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Our will was not a factor in any way. It was excluded. We were born as a result of the will of others, that of our parents, and of course,

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God's will to create us. So your flesh can't give birth to spirit. It profits you nothing.

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No help. Peter would say, blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, according to his mercy, he caused us to be born again.

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Right? Our choice wasn't the cause. He caused it. Next to determine new creation.

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The word creation implies a creator. We're not going to defend the whole, right? There's a creator and a creation.

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Creation is the work of a creator. But if you're the new creation, how can you both be the creator and the created at the same time?

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Again, you would have had to exist in order to create yourself. If you took part in your own creation, you'd have to be prior to your creation.

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You'd be co -creator. And not in need of being created, because you exist. Again, it's a contradiction in self -defeating.

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Now, watch this. Even your new creation harkens back to Genesis, when God created the world. In Genesis 1, you notice in the beginning,

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God created the heavens and the earth. And the earth was without form and void. And darkness was over the face of the deep.

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And the spirit of the Lord was hovering over the face of the waters, waiting for the creation to yell out, change us.

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Let's just say it like that. And the spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. And God said, let there be light.

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Right? Similarly, in our hearts, the void and formless heart.

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We had void and stony hearts, covered in darkness, until God said, let there be light.

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And He shed His light and void in our hearts. The Genesis account of the new creation points us back to our new creation.

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In 2 Corinthians 4, Paul explains it. For God, who said, let light shine out of darkness, has shown in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus.

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And as the spirit took up residence in creation, He takes up residence in our hearts and fills the void and illuminates us.

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It's not until God sheds the light of Himself into our hearts and transforms them that we have the knowledge of His glory and the glory of Christ, which begins our new creation.

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Next and last is resurrection. Resurrection implies you were dead first, right?

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You need to be dead in order to be resurrected. Right? So you're dead and then you're made alive. So what did

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Lazarus have to do with his resurrection? What would any dead person have to do with their resurrection?

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Nothing, right? Again, you would have had to have been alive in order to take part in resurrecting yourself.

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But then if you were alive already, there'd be no need for a resurrection. Living people don't need to be resurrected because they're alive already.

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Same is true for a spiritual resurrection. Another gem from Jim Oreck. What do we know about physical death?

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To say that someone is dead is the worst thing you can say about a person's physical condition. There is a vast difference between critically ill and dead.

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A physician might be able to help you when you're critically ill, but only God can help you when you're dead.

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In our dead and fallen condition, you do not need medicine to make you better. You need to be resurrected by God to give you life.

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Here's how Paul put it in Ephesians. Two greatest words in the Bible. About God.

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About God being rich in mercy because of the great love with which He had loved us, even while we were dead in our trespasses.

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When? While we were dead, He made us alive together with Christ. By grace, you have been saved.

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Right? Is this the grace of opportunity? Or is this the grace of salvation? When the

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Spirit comes in, does He come to bring birth and life? Or give it a good try? Does God wait for dead men to talk and choose?

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No. This is the unbelievable, invisible grace of God that conquers and subdues our hearts for our own good out of His mercy.

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So that when we look to Him, we say, Lucky me. So if this is true, then you play no part in your spiritual resurrection.

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It's the Spirit that quickens us and brings us to life. God is the cause of the new birth.

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He is your Father. He fathered you. God is the cause of our resurrection. He raised you.

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And as a new creation, God is your creator. He created you. And listen, He didn't need your help or permission.

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He did that because that was His sovereign will. In fact, in your flesh, you and I were resisting the things of God.

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And if you or I cooperated in our salvation or added anything to it, what would happen?

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It would be stained by sin because that was our nature. All of our works are stained by sin because sin has affected all of our faculties.

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All of our good works are filthy rags in God's sight. These realities cut into the pride of man and undermine any responsibility that we might want to take in our salvation.

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Again, hard to understand, hard to swallow. If you're born again, resurrected as a new creation, it's because something has happened to you, not by you or because of you.

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If you're born again, resurrected to a new creation, it is because someone else did something to you that you could not do for yourself.

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More so, He did something for you that you didn't seek, deserve, or determine.

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Why? There's none who seek after God. Jesus comes to seek and save the lost. Can I ask you, does

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He complete His mission? Or is He still trying to find everybody? Right?

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There's none who seek after God. Therefore, it highlights the abundantly amazing grace of God.

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Jonah said it, salvation is of the Lord. The Bible is not a self -help book. It's a self -death book.

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Before you were born again, you were at enmity with God. You were basically hating Him. Your desire was for the flesh and was repulsed by the things of the spirit.

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You were opposed, hostile to them. You had spiritual rabies. Does anyone know what the medical term for rabies is?

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Hydrophobia. Hydrophobia, thank you. What's hydrophobia? The fear of water.

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Listen carefully. People with rabies die of dehydration because they're repulsed by water.

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They won't go near it. There's actually a YouTube video of a guy who has rabies. They fill it with water. He's trying to bring it to his mouth.

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His hand is shaking. He can't get it to his mouth. Hydrophobia, he's afraid of the water. The very thing the body needs to survive, water, is the very thing he's repulsed by.

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The same is true of an unbeliever. The very thing the sinner needs, repentance of faith in Christ by the spirit, is the very thing he's repulsed by and fighting against.

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He neither wants those things nor is he attracted to them. He has spiritual rabies.

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Pneumophobia. You do not want the things of the spirit. Therefore, you resist them. That's the natural tendency of the human heart.

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Jesus said, Man loves darkness but hates the light, and he does not come into the light lest his deeds be exposed.

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Once again, the Apostle Paul says it like this, Romans 5 -6, For while we were helpless,

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When? While we were helpless, at the right time, Christ died for the ungodly. So the scripture says we're helpless.

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Again, this word means, It means without power, without strength. It may be expressed as when we could not do anything about it.

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So when we could not do anything about our condition, God comes, dies on the cross and rises.

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You get the picture? Our flesh can only make things worse, not better. And your flesh cannot please

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God. Anything that involves us and our power comes from the flesh and is stained by sin.

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It's powerless when it comes to salvation. If you're dead in sins and the spirit gives you new life,

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The proper response is, Thank you! Not, hey, look what I did. John tells us,

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What do you have that you did not receive? And if you did receive it, why are you motionless when you did not?

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Why does that matter? That matters because spiritually dead people do not exercise faith. They did not have it.

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It was given to them. This means that faith is a completely free, unconditional gift,

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And the evidence of the new birth, not the cause of it. It is the gift of a gracious and merciful

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God, And it signifies new life. Listen, when a baby comes out of the womb, It doesn't breathe in order to become alive.

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It breathes because it's alive already. Faith is the first breath of the new birth. A child of God exercises faith

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Because the Holy Spirit has done something meaningful for him. A sinner sins because it's his nature,

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And a believer believes because it's his new nature. Brought about by the power and the grace of God, Not the sinner themselves.

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So we've gone over what total depravity is and isn't, Where it is in scripture, and why it matters to salvation.

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However, there's one more very important reason why this doctrine matters. This doctrine of total depravity magnifies and glorifies

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God in His sovereignty, His mercy, and His grace. Since you were spiritually dead, your salvation was unconditional.

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You're dead in your sins, your salvation is unconditional, It had nothing to do with you. Your sins were actually paid for, there was a definite atonement.

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God showed you the grace of salvation, not the grace of opportunity. And you persevered because He preserved you.

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Remember what Jude says? To Him who is able to keep you from falling, And present you before the throne without spot or blemish,

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That's the God I want. God, and only God, gets all of the glory for graciously and lovingly bringing dead sinners to life.

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Sinners who hated Him and deserve His wrath are given something they don't deserve and have not earned.

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In the Gospel, only in the Gospel, does the hero die for the villain. Every movie you watch, the villain dies.

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Only in the Gospel does the hero die for the villain. In fact, by our own actions, we've disqualified ourselves from salvation.

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But God places Jesus, His only innocent Son, on a cross in our place,

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And pours His wrath out on Him and not us. Grace, mercy, by Him who boasts, boast in the

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Lord. Your salvation was the gracious work of the Triune God, Who perfectly and graciously saved those

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He chose. The Father appoints, the Son accomplishes, the Holy Spirit applies.

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This, the Bible, is the greatest love story you will ever know. The Father gives a bride to the

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Son. John 6 is betrothal language. He's giving a bride to the Son. The Son willingly accepts the bride and says,

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I will love her to death. The Holy Spirit brings to life those people and walks them down the wedding aisle

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In preparation for the wedding supper of the Lamb. It's Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit bringing about the salvation of His people.

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Where the sinful, prideful heart looks around and compares himself to Hitler, At least

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I'm not like him or anyone else. The regenerated heart looks up and fixes his eyes on Jesus.

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Jesus is what I'm pointing to as my standard. And because He's my standard, I recognize my sinfulness, my inability, and my shortcomings.

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At the same time, as I look to Him and point to Him as the standard that highlights my guilt, I also point to Him as my

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Savior that highlights my pain. Jesus Christ is the certified check that God put on that cross to guarantee your salvation.

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Spurgeon says, when I look at myself, I ask, how can I be saved? But when I look at the cross,

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I ask, how can I not be? This is all the work of the Spirit, apart from our desire, our will, our choice, or our ability.

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We have been born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.

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It does not depend on the man who wills or the man who runs, but on God who has mercy.

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This is all the merciful work of God's grace alone. As Scripture describes it, it says, end me with God.

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We have no desire of Him. I'm not just sick in need of a doctor, I'm dead in need of resurrection, and I'm the

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Savior. If a sinner is saved, he's saved by grace, all of grace and only grace.

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So, lastly, why does total depravity matter? Because it reveals that God is the most gracious, merciful, powerful, and loving

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Savior we can ever know. In Wilkins' book, None Like Him, she says it like this. This is how amazing this doctrine becomes when you truly embrace it.

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That our hearts could be made a willing dwelling place, more suitable for the Spirit of the

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Lord, than a tabernacle or a temple, is miraculous on a scale we cannot fathom.

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That the seat of utter depravity could become the seat of utter purity follows the mind.

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When I realize the wicked sesto of my own heart, when

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I realize that that has become the mercy seat for my own forgiveness, and that Jesus sits on that and rules from my heart,

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I'm undone. It is beyond comprehension. It brings me to tears.

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Today, I hope I made a scriptural argument to help you see the deadness and inability of man in sin, and the amazing grace, power, and mercy of the

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God who will bring you to life apart from your own hell. If you now, seated here, understand the depth of your own sin, if you find yourself remembering your evil deeds and loathing yourself when you don't know the

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Lord, repent. If that's what you're hearing right now, hear this also.

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God says, I will give you a new heart and a new spirit I will put within you.

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If you repent and believe, trust in the Lord, you will be saved, rescued from your sins.

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May God receive all the glory, all the honor, and all the praise. Let's pray.

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Father in heaven, we do recognize the simpleness of our own condition. We also recognize the great and merciful, the grace and the mercy that you've shown us in your son,

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Jesus. If there be any here that don't know you, we pray that you would open their eyes, their ears, and their hearts, and draw them to Jesus Christ apart from their own will, for their own good, for your name's sake, and for your glory.

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Father, I thank you. I pray that this message would be edifying to your people, that it would not just be information, but transformation.