Total Depravity

Sovereign Grace Family Church

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July 11, 2021

00:00: I want to invite you to take out your Bibles and turn with me to the book of Romans, chapter 3, and hold your place at verse 9.
00:14: We will be reading that in just a moment.
00:18: But before we read the text this morning, I want to give some preliminary thoughts.
00:21: In fact, I'm going to write two words on the board.
00:30: I don't always get to use my board and I enjoy it, so today will be one of those days.
01:05: So I've written two words on the board.
01:07: I've written the word Calvinism and the word predestination.
01:16: These two words are, to say the least, highly controversial words.
01:27: And in fact, in some churches, they would be considered bad words, words that are not uttered, especially from the pulpit, unless, of course, to speak ill of them.
01:41: Yet this will be the hard subject of the next five weeks.
01:45: These things will be at the forefront of what we discuss because today begins our series on the doctrines of grace, which are sometimes referred to as the five points of Calvinism.
01:58: And I want to be clear from the outset that our church affirms all five points.
02:07: And we actually go through these doctrines pretty, I would say, at least once a year, maybe not every year, but we try to reaffirm these things regularly because we always have new people coming in and we don't ever want to be unclear about who we are or what we teach.
02:27: But also, it is a reminder for all of us who are here of what it is we stand for.
02:37: So I want to say something to any visitors who are here today.
02:40: I know we always have visitors.
02:41: You may well hear some things today which you have never heard.
02:48: These teachings are not popular in modern churches.
02:53: However, as we will see, I hope to demonstrate today that they make up the foundational beliefs of our spiritual ancestors.
03:04: And more importantly, they are biblical.
03:09: So I would encourage you today to listen to what is taught and compare it to what the Bible says.
03:17: The Bible is our final authority, not John Calvin, not Martin Luther, not Ulrich Zwingli, not Augustine, not anyone else.
03:27: The Bible is our authority.
03:31: And we do not teach these doctrines because we are committed to a system.
03:36: We teach these doctrines because we are committed to the Bible.
03:40: And this is what the Bible teaches.
03:43: I also want to clarify something and say this.
03:46: None of us, especially the elders here, claim to have perfect understanding of anything.
03:53: None of us have perfect theology.
03:56: But we do believe theology matters.
04:00: In fact, that is our unofficial motto here at Sovereign Grace.
04:05: Theology matters.
04:07: Seeking a biblical understanding of God is our duty as Christians.
04:15: If we have an unbiblical view of God, if we have an unbiblical view of salvation, if we have an unbiblical view of the nature of man, then we will not worship in spirit and truth as God has commanded us to do.
04:29: And the average American today has terrible theology.
04:37: And I don't say that as an opinion.
04:40: I say that based upon every survey conducted.
04:45: What little bit of evidence the sociological sciences can provide for us, they do provide for us this.
04:51: Every time a theological survey is put out into the American landscape, it comes back ruinous for the state of modern theological thought.
05:03: In fact, a Pew Research study was conducted which showed conclusively that atheists and agnostics knew their Bibles better than most people who claim to be Christians.
05:18: Based upon the survey questions asked, based upon what the Bible teaches, people who claim to be atheists and agnostics knew more about the Bible than people who say they go to church.
05:29: People who say they are believers.
05:33: In fact, do you know who was the second group? After the atheists and agnostics, Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses.
05:41: When they were surveyed on what the Bible says, Ligonier Ministries conducts a theological survey every two years.
05:51: It's called The State of Theology.
05:52: You can look it up online.
05:55: I actually use this in the academy.
05:56: I make our students take the survey in the academy because I wanted to see where they would land.
06:05: In that theological survey, I'll just give you a quote, 30% of evangelicals, these are people who claim to be followers of Jesus Christ, 30% of evangelicals reject the deity of Christ, 46% believe men are good by nature, and 22% think that gender identity is a personal choice.
06:28: 30%, again, think that they reject the deity of Christ, 46% say that man is good by nature, 22% say gender is a personal choice.
06:38: We have a horrible theology.
06:40: We have a horrible understanding of God and a horrible understanding of man.
06:47: People often want to say, well, America is the greatest Christian nation, but in reality, the religion of most Americans is not Christianity.
06:57: The religion of most Americans has no connection to Jesus Christ at all other than maybe saying Jesus.
07:08: Their theology has more in common with Oprah than it does with the Messiah.
07:14: In 2005, a book was published called Soul Searching, The Religious and Spiritual Lives of American Teenagers.
07:20: That was the title of the book, long title.
07:22: It was written by Christian Smith and Melinda Denton, two social scientists, and they coined a term which they believe properly describes the beliefs of young people.
07:31: Some of you have heard me use this term before.
07:33: The term of the modern American religion today is not Christianity.
07:37: It is moralistic therapeutic deism.
07:40: Moralistic therapeutic deism is defined ironically by five points.
07:46: These are not the five points of Calvinism, but moralistic therapeutic deism is defined by these five things.
07:51: Number one, a God exists who created the world and watches over humanity.
07:55: Number two, God wants people to be good, nice, and fair to each other as is taught in the Bible in most world religions.
08:02: Number three, the central goal of life is to be happy and feel good about yourself.
08:07: Number four, God does not need to be particularly involved in someone's life except when he's needed to solve a problem.
08:15: Number five, good people go to heaven when they die.
08:22: I got to tell you, if I were in a lot of churches today and I said those five, if that was the five points of my sermon, I'd get amens on every one because that's the poor theology of today.
08:35: And I got to tell you, if what I just read doesn't offend you or bother you, then you have a poor theology too because all five of those things are untrue.
08:44: The first one could be contorted to truth, but even it is not the fullness of truth.
08:52: After conducting more than 3,000 interviews of American adolescents, the researchers reported that when it came to the most crucial questions of faith and beliefs, most adolescents responded with a shrug and said, whatever, whatever.
09:07: Well, that's not just the attitude of young people.
09:11: By the way, those young people aren't young anymore, that was 2005, so they are all older now, and many of them have not abandoned those bad doctrines.
09:24: So when I say that we're diving deep into the waters of theology in this series, I realize many people are not used to going any deeper than a mud puddle.
09:34: That's really what the church is, it's a mile wide and an inch deep.
09:42: Many people do not want to hear these things, they do not want to be challenged by the truth, they want to come to church, have someone tell them something that makes them feel good about themselves so they can get through another week of drudgery, so they can come back in and be told how good they are again, so they can go back out into the world and go through another week of drudgery.
09:56: And that cycle repeats as we get told every week how good we are, every week how much God loves us, how every week we're doing everything the best we can, and God's okay with that, and God doesn't have any expectations, God doesn't have any commands, God doesn't have anything at issue with us, and we're good and great, and God's good and great, and everybody's good and great, and oh, let's just sing kumbaya.
10:22: Yet if we're going to be faithful to the Bible, we need to know what the Bible says, and we need to study what it says, and it speaks volumes about the nature of man and the nature of God, and that's what we're going to cover over the next five weeks.
10:37: We're going to cover really a lot of things that many people never want to talk about.
10:47: So what are the doctrines of grace? What are the five points of Calvinism? Well, the doctrines of grace are a distillation of the biblical doctrine of salvation.
10:59: In theological terms, we call this soteriology.
11:04: Soteriology is simply the Greek word sotso or soter, which is the word for saved or salvation, and adding the word ology to the end, making it the study of that thing.
11:14: So soteriology is the study of salvation, and we're seeking to answer this question.
11:18: How is a sinful man made right with a holy God? That's the entire question that these five points seek to answer.
11:28: How is a sinful man made right with a holy God? Many people hear about Calvinism, and the first thing they want to think about is that word predestination.
11:36: That's why I wrote it on the board.
11:37: Can I say this? If you think that Calvinism only equals predestination, you have no idea.
11:48: Predestination certainly is part of what we understand, but predestination is not the whole, and if you do not understand the nature of man, if you do not understand the nature of God and election, if you do not understand the nature of the atonement, if you do not understand the nature of the effectual calling, and if you do not understand the nature of God persevering us in our faith, then predestination will make no sense to you.
12:14: So my heart in this is to say this.
12:16: If predestination bothers you, just listen to the other things, and it won't.
12:23: I tell you this, if you understand what I say today only, if you walk away from this sermon hearing and understanding what I'm going to teach you today, none of the rest of this series should bother you.
12:34: Because if what I say today is true, everything that I and the rest of the men who are going to preach this series are going to say will flow from this.
12:43: Everything I say and they will say will flow from this one specific truth.
12:49: Man is born absolutely unable to go to God on his own.
12:56: Man is born totally depraved.
13:00: If that is true, then we shouldn't have a problem with unconditional election.
13:05: We shouldn't have a problem with unlimited atonement.
13:06: We shouldn't have a problem with irresistible grace.
13:08: We shouldn't have a problem with perseverance of the saints.
13:12: In fact, everybody always gets hung up on the L, limited atonement.
13:15: That's why Brother Mike is preaching that one.
13:16: I'm going to be out of town.
13:22: Mike gets the hard one, but I'll be gone.
13:25: So Brother Andy will be like a goalie, protecting Brother Mike after the sermon.
13:31: But the reality is, as I'm going to be preaching these things today, everything else flows out of this.
13:37: I remember standing.
13:38: I've told this story before.
13:39: I was standing at Lifeway, holding the book, The Five Points of Calvinism.
13:42: I was just flipping through it.
13:43: A guy walked up to me and wanted to argue with me about it in the store.
13:48: Well, I don't believe that.
13:50: And I said, okay.
13:51: I don't care.
13:53: I mean, what are you, I'm not here to argue with you.
13:56: I'm literally standing in the store.
13:57: Well, don't you want to know why I don't believe it? I really don't care.
14:00: I know why you don't believe it.
14:02: It's offensive to the natural man.
14:04: I have no idea.
14:05: You don't have to, I know why you don't believe this.
14:07: It's no big deal to me, because you just don't get it yet.
14:11: I get it.
14:12: But he said, I just don't like that limited atonement.
14:16: That's what Mike's going to preach about.
14:18: I said, well, you believe in hell, don't you? He said, well, yeah, well, I believe everybody has the power to choose.
14:23: I said, well, then your real problem is with total depravity.
14:26: It's not with limited atonement.
14:29: Your issue is with the issue of man's ability to choose.
14:35: And I want to tell you today, man's ability to choose has been corrupted by sin.
14:41: That's the whole point of today's sermon, is our wanna has been corrupted.
14:49: The wanna is that thing inside of you that makes you want things.
14:51: The wanna, I want to this, I want to do that, I want to do that.
14:53: It's been messed up.
14:56: So if we can get today, if you can really dive deep today and understand what the Bible says about us by nature, the rest of it won't be a problem.
15:09: Most of us understand the doctrine of grace by the acronym TULIP.
15:14: And if you don't know the TULIP, it's total depravity, which is what we're going to look at today.
15:19: Unconditional election, which we'll look at next week.
15:21: Limited atonement, which Brother Mike will preach on.
15:23: Irresistible grace, which Brother Andy will preach on.
15:26: And then perseverance of the saints.
15:28: Lord willing, I'll be back from Kentucky at that point, and I can preach on perseverance of the saints.
15:32: So that will be the five points.
15:34: Now, those five points were not written by John Calvin, very important.
15:38: We call it the five points of Calvinism, but the five points of Calvinism were actually, that phrase wasn't even used until the 1800s.
15:47: And the five points that we now use, total depravity, unconditional election, limited atonement, irresistible grace, perseverance of the saints, first time that came into use was by a Presbyterian minister at a convention.
15:57: And then later it was included in the book, the biblical doctrine of predestination by Lorraine Bettner, which was in the 30s.
16:05: So it's really less than 100 years that we've been using the TULIP.
16:09: So the TULIP by itself doesn't really come from Calvin, it's just a distillation of the teachings on salvation.
16:18: So we still use it today because it's a good teaching tool and it's easy to remember, but it is not the whole warp and woof of what we believe.
16:28: So let's read the text.
16:30: We're going to read Romans 3, we're going to read verses 9 to 18, as we begin our first pedal of the TULIP, total depravity.
16:46: What then? Are we Jews any better off? No, not at all.
16:55: For we have already charged that both Jews and Greeks are under sin as it is written.
17:01: None is righteous, no not one, no one understands, no one seeks for God.
17:10: All have turned aside, together they have become worthless, no one does good, not even one.
17:17: Their throat is an open grave, they use their tongues to deceive, the venom of asps is under their lips, their mouth is full of curses and bitterness.
17:28: Their feet are swift to shed blood and their paths are ruin and misery and the way of peace they have not known.
17:38: There is no fear of God before their eyes.
17:46: Father God, I come to you in Jesus name and I ask Lord that even now that you would keep me from error as I preach and Lord as we seek to understand this message from your word, I pray that you would open ears and eyes as only you can do.
18:02: More importantly, Lord, that you would open hearts.
18:07: Lord, may we all be confirmed in what we believe.
18:12: May we all be conformed to the image of Christ.
18:18: And Lord, if there are those who do not believe, who are here among us today, who do not believe in Christ, Lord, that you would do what only you can do.
18:26: Remove from them the heart of stone and give them a heart of flesh that they might believe your truth.
18:33: I pray this in Jesus name and for his sake, amen.
18:41: In 2004, I was introduced to the doctrines of grace.
18:46: I had been a student in seminary for a few years at that time.
18:49: And a friend of mine challenged my understanding of God's work in salvation.
18:53: It took several years before I really was convinced of these teachings.
18:59: In fact, I tried to disprove them.
19:01: I wanna make that clear right off.
19:04: When the first time I ever heard about the doctrines of grace, the first time I ever heard about Calvinism, predestination, total depravity, unconditional selection, all that, first thing I did was I spent a year trying to find everything I could to disprove it.
19:16: I read several books, read many articles and papers that had been written on the subject, heard many sermons trying to disprove it.
19:27: Because of several things, these are the things I wanted.
19:30: I wanted to be able to affirm the absolute free will of man.
19:33: That was the first thing.
19:36: Number two, I wanted to be able to affirm universal atonement.
19:41: Number three, I wanted to be able to affirm that every man ultimately was the determiner of his own destiny.
19:47: Those were the three things that I had been taught in seminary.
19:51: And those were the three things I didn't wanna give up.
19:55: I didn't go to a Calvinist seminary.
19:58: I went to a seminary that taught me that Calvinism kills churches.
20:03: Do not preach the doctrines of grace.
20:06: Do not preach those things.
20:09: It will kill your church.
20:10: It will kill your missionary spirit.
20:11: It will kill your evangelistic zeal.
20:19: And I say this because what I decided in my portion, I know I'm not doing all five, but in my portion of this series, I said, you know what I'm gonna do? I'm gonna go back in my mind to 2004, and I'm going to try to explain to you what convinced me.
20:36: So I'm gonna pretend that you've never heard this before.
20:40: I'm gonna pretend this is brand new.
20:41: Some of you, it's not.
20:42: Some of you, it's not brand new.
20:43: Some of you, you're Calvinist through and through.
20:45: You got the C tattooed on your arm.
20:48: Just kidding, but you might, maybe a tulip.
20:54: But here's the thing, imagine you'd never heard this before, and you came in here, and you were hearing me today.
20:59: You might think I'm nuts.
21:02: So I wanna imagine that as I preach this sermon.
21:05: That's how I wrote it.
21:07: I wrote it as if I'd never heard this before.
21:14: The T in tulip, rather, stands for total depravity.
21:17: And total depravity is a theological term for the natural condition of the human soul.
21:25: Depravity means moral corruptness.
21:30: It means wickedness.
21:33: And total indicates that this is not something which is only affecting a part of a man, but it affects the whole man.
21:45: Every person is a sinner through and through.
21:50: And I wanna just give you a few verses to declare that to you.
21:54: I don't want you to just hear it from me.
21:56: Here's a few verses to consider.
21:58: In Genesis chapter 6, before God brings the flood, we are told that the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.
22:13: And people step back and they say, but wait a minute, pastor, I know what that's about.
22:19: That is leading up to the flood, and there was a great corruption that happened at that point.
22:24: And that's what that, that's not every man.
22:26: That is not every human being.
22:28: That's just that generation that was exceedingly wicked.
22:33: That does not apply to every man in every generation.
22:38: In fact, when they came off the ark, pastor, they were better than they were before.
22:44: Well, let's just very quickly in our minds go to Genesis 8, which is after the ark, after the flood, and this is what it says.
22:54: When the Lord smelled the pleasing aroma, by the way, this is Genesis 8.21.
22:59: Noah has made an altar and he's burning to the Lord.
23:03: It says, when the Lord smelled the pleasing aroma, the Lord said in his heart, I will never again curse the ground because of man.
23:09: For the intention of man's heart is evil from his youth.
23:16: Neither will I ever again strike down every living creature as I have done.
23:20: In the midst of God making a promise that he's not going to destroy the earth, he still declares the sinfulness of man in the midst of that claim.
23:28: He said, even though man is sinful from his youth, I'm not going to do this again.
23:33: He didn't say man got better.
23:37: He said that his wickedness remained.
23:41: You know what I often hear people say? People say, oh, he has such a good heart.
23:48: People say, oh, that man has such a good heart.
23:51: And I know what they mean.
23:52: I mean, you know, I did five funerals this week.
23:55: That's my record.
23:58: Normally, I do one or two a month at most, but the funeral home had need this week.
24:03: They called me every day and I did a service almost every day this week.
24:09: Did two on one, two on Tuesday, two on Thursday, one on Saturday.
24:14: And here's what I always remember when I go into those, because most of those people are lost.
24:21: The reason why they're calling me is they don't have a church, they don't have a minister, but they want somebody to come and preach the gospel at their funeral.
24:26: By then, by the way, it's too late for the person who's gone.
24:29: This is a good reminder that it's not too late for the people.
24:33: I consider this almost like open air preaching, brother, because I go there and I preach the gospel to a bunch of people who've never heard it.
24:38: So I'm thankful that I got five times this week to preach the gospel to people who don't hear it.
24:44: And as I'm preaching that and I'm preaching the gospel to them, I'm thinking, you know, most of these people are they're coming up and talking.
24:51: A lot of people, oh, he had such a good heart.
24:52: Oh, he had such a good heart.
24:53: I know what they mean by that.
24:56: But do you know what the Bible says about the heart of man? Turn to I want you to see this one.
25:02: Turn to Jeremiah.
25:04: We'll be back to Romans.
25:05: So keep your finger there, but go to Jeremiah.
25:10: Go to chapter 17 and look at verse nine.
25:33: Jeremiah chapter 17, verse nine says this.
25:36: The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately sick.
25:46: Who can understand it? I like the King James rendering where it says the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked.
25:56: Who can know it? You know, we used to have a song.
26:03: Listen to your heart.
26:06: Right.
26:06: It was a pop song.
26:08: Listen to your heart.
26:10: I'll tell you this.
26:12: Be careful listening to your heart.
26:15: Your heart is desperately wicked.
26:18: You can't really understand because your wanna your wants have been corrupted by sin.
26:28: Since we're in the Old Testament, turn over to Psalm 14.
26:32: By the way, if you're wondering where Paul quotes from, because if you noticed when we were reading Romans three, it's a quote as it is written.
26:41: Right.
26:41: He's quoting much of this from Psalm 14.
26:44: So if you turn to Psalm 14, verse one, it says in Psalm 14, verse one, the fool says in his heart, there is no God.
27:00: That's the one everybody always uses against atheists.
27:02: But understand he's not talking about atheists there.
27:06: The concept of atheism didn't even really exist in the ancient world as it does today.
27:11: The idea was that God is not involved.
27:15: The fool says in his heart, God is not involved.
27:17: God is not here.
27:19: It's not so much God doesn't exist.
27:21: It's God doesn't matter.
27:22: That's the idea.
27:24: God is not.
27:24: God is not all powerful.
27:26: He's the fool said in his heart.
27:27: God is not is really the idea.
27:29: So he says, he says, the fool says in his heart, there is no God or God is not.
27:33: They are corrupt.
27:34: They do abominable deeds.
27:35: There is none who does good.
27:36: The Lord looks down from heaven on the children of man to see if there are any who understand who seek after God.
27:42: They have all turned aside together.
27:43: They have become corrupt.
27:44: There is none who does good.
27:46: Not even one.
27:51: You see, not everybody is an atheist.
27:54: But many people live as practical atheists.
27:57: Because practical atheism is just this living as if God doesn't matter.
28:03: And that's the way most people live.
28:06: They live as if God does not matter.
28:09: Now they'll give, they'll give lip service to God, you know, around Christmas time.
28:13: They'll sing songs that mention God.
28:15: Or around Easter time, they'll tell stories that mention God.
28:19: But they live their life as functional atheists without God.
28:24: In fact, the sad thing is many Christians do this.
28:26: You come to church on Sunday and then God is absent.
28:29: Monday through Saturday.
28:31: You don't read your Bibles.
28:32: You don't spend time with God in personal prayer and devotion with him.
28:37: And you live your life as a functioning atheist.
28:40: And then you come in on Sunday as if, hey, we're meeting for the first time.
28:48: Your worship on Sunday should be an outgrowth of your personal devotion through the week.
28:54: If this is the only time you open the Bible.
28:56: If this is the only time you worship.
29:00: Then there is no doubt that you are very immature in your faith.
29:11: That was free.
29:11: That didn't really go with the lesson.
29:14: That was just extra.
29:16: Because this is talking about the natural man.
29:21: Before we leave the Old Testament, turn to Ecclesiastes.
29:26: In Ecclesiastes chapter 7.
29:30: We don't go here often.
29:32: So it's nice to get to open up the book of Ecclesiastes every once in a while.
29:37: Notice what it says in chapter 7 verse 20.
29:49: It says this.
29:50: Surely there is not a righteous man on earth who does good and never sins.
29:57: Surely there is not a righteous man on earth who does good and never sins.
30:04: You might say, well, that's a little unfair.
30:07: Everybody sins.
30:08: That's the point.
30:11: That is the point.
30:13: You see, what we have done is we have lessened the reality of sin.
30:19: And we have lessened the consequences of sin.
30:21: We have so degraded the idea of how bad sin is that sin doesn't matter anymore.
30:28: To many people.
30:31: God just wants you to be happy.
30:32: And hey, if it makes you happy to live in sin, go live in sin.
30:36: Because all God wants you to do is be happy.
30:39: But as I've said many times, and it is true, I didn't invent it.
30:42: I think I first heard it from R.C.
30:44: Sproul.
30:44: But the reality is God is so much more concerned that you be holy than you be happy.
30:55: But this text tells us there's not a righteous man on earth.
30:57: There's none who does good.
30:58: There's none who never sins.
31:01: Now compare this to Mark chapter 10.
31:04: You don't have to turn there because you remember the story in your mind.
31:06: I bet there was a young man who came to Jesus.
31:09: And he came and he said, good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life? And what did Jesus say to that young man? Why dost thou call me? Why do you call me good? Now, Jesus is not denying his own goodness.
31:26: Jesus is the only good man who ever walked the earth.
31:28: But what he is denying is that man's understanding of goodness.
31:31: Because who are you to say to any other man that man is good? There is none good save God alone.
31:37: That's what Jesus says.
31:39: Why do you call me good? There is none good except God alone.
31:44: See, I'm not here today to tell you you're not perfect.
31:46: I'm here to tell you you're not even good.
31:53: It's not just that we're imperfect.
31:54: It's we're actually bad.
31:59: See, people, they come up with all kinds of things for sin.
32:02: Oh, sin is making a mistake.
32:06: Sin is a foible or a piccadillo.
32:11: No, sin is wickedness and it's high treason against the most high God.
32:17: And we have all indulged in sin.
32:23: We have all loved sin.
32:27: We have loved our sin.
32:35: So Jesus said there is no good man.
32:38: There is no one good save God alone.
32:42: Now, with all that as the backdrop, now we find ourselves at Romans 3.
32:48: And we now have a better understanding of what Paul is saying.
32:51: And by the way, if you're unfamiliar with the construction of Romans, in Romans chapters one and two, the apostle Paul is expressing the sinful nature of all men.
33:01: He's expressing the universal sinful nature of man.
33:04: And he begins in chapter one with those who do not have the law.
33:08: And he expresses that even though they don't have the law, they still sin.
33:12: Because they see God in the world around them and they know he exists.
33:16: And instead of worshiping him, they worship idols and therefore demonstrate their own sinfulness and their idolatry.
33:22: And everything that flows out of that, all of the corruption of Romans one, all of the homosexuality, all of the corruption of hating your parents and hating your neighbor and doing evil things are all growing out of idolatry.
33:36: Replacing God with something else, usually yourself.
33:41: And then in chapter two, he moves to those who do have the law, which would have been who? The Jews.
33:48: And he says, look, you have the law and yet you're still a sinner.
33:51: You look at them who don't have the law and you say, look how evil they are.
33:55: But you have the law and you are even worse because you know the law and yet you still sin.
34:00: So he gets to chapter three and he's built this entire case against all of humanity.
34:06: All of humanity, the case is this, you're all wicked.
34:09: And he gets to chapter three and he says, I have declared that both Jew and Greek are all under sin.
34:19: As it is written, there is none good, no, not one.
34:23: If you're taking notes today and you want to write point number one.
34:26: Yeah, we just got to point one.
34:28: Lock up.
34:28: We're still going to go.
34:30: There's only three, but you're going to get all three.
34:33: Number one, there is no good man.
34:36: There is no good man.
34:41: Notice what he says in verse nine.
34:42: What then? Are we Jews any better off? No, not at all.
34:45: For we have already charged both Jews and Greeks are under sin.
34:47: As it is written, none is righteous.
34:50: No, not one.
34:51: That is what you call in language, the universal negative.
34:56: A universal negative is when you say, no, not one.
35:02: If I said, no one can ride a bicycle.
35:06: No, not one.
35:07: And I walk outside and I see a little kid ching ching.
35:10: I'm wrong.
35:13: I've been disproven by the one exception to the rule.
35:17: If I say no one can ride a bike and there goes the kid riding a bike, I've been disproven by the one exception to the rule.
35:24: The apostle Paul says there is none who does good.
35:28: No, not one.
35:34: One might immediately object.
35:36: Wait a minute, Pastor.
35:37: Wait a minute.
35:37: The whole Bible talks about good people.
35:39: The Bible talks about Noah.
35:40: It talks about Abraham.
35:42: It talks about Job.
35:43: It even said Lot was righteous.
35:47: Understand this.
35:47: And this is very important to consider.
35:49: This is this is put it in your mind.
35:52: Paul is speaking about the natural condition of the human heart.
35:58: And a man is only counted righteous after a supernatural change of his natural heart.
36:05: The only time a man is counted righteous is when a man has faith.
36:10: And the only reason a man has faith is God changes their heart from unbelief to faith.
36:16: God opens their heart to believe.
36:19: You will never find a place in the Bible where a man who does not have faith is called righteous.
36:24: Ever.
36:26: In fact, Habakkuk 2.5 says the opposite.
36:28: The righteous live by what? Faith.
36:32: So understand this.
36:34: You want to tell me about a righteous man? I will say apart from the work of the Holy Spirit changing a man's heart from unbelief to faith, you will never find a righteous man.
36:42: And those who are righteous are declared righteous by an external righteousness, not a righteousness of their own.
36:49: The Apostle Paul says, I live having a righteousness that does not come from myself, but a righteousness which comes through Jesus Christ.
36:57: The righteousness of God, which comes by faith, not my own righteousness.
37:07: Now, very quickly, it says there's no good man.
37:11: I do want to say this total depravity.
37:13: I want to clarify something.
37:14: Total depravity does not mean we're as bad as we could be.
37:20: Total depravity does not mean utterly deplorable.
37:25: Because honestly, even the vilest of men could be worse.
37:31: You know, even the most vicious dictators could kill a few more.
37:35: You know, but also, if we thought about it, we could probably extol virtues of people who are not believers.
37:47: If we sat here and said, you know, let's think about the unbelievers in our life.
37:50: We got some pretty nice people that we know.
37:53: People that we would say are decent, good, nice people from a human perspective.
38:00: People that we would do business with if we had an opportunity, if we needed something worked on.
38:04: I'm not going to ask if a guy working on my air conditioner.
38:06: I'm not going to say, do you believe in Jesus? I'm going to say, do you know how to work on air conditioners? You know, I mean, that's, I mean, you know, that's a, that's something to consider, right? So there are times when we have to engage with people.
38:15: And we would say, these are people that we would say, they don't seem to fit this category of total depravity.
38:24: But I want you to just for a second imagine in your heart, and I've said this before, but please indulge me if I repeat myself, because repetition is the key to learning.
38:32: And I want you to hear this because it's important.
38:34: Imagine just for a moment that all of the thoughts and intentions of your heart were placed on a projection screen.
38:44: If all of the thoughts and intentions of your heart were played on a projector for your family to see.
38:51: Just the thoughts and intentions of your heart.
38:54: Would you be willing to let that projector play for anyone in your life? To know every thought of your heart and every wicked and vile desire that you have ever had to be played on a projection screen, even for the person that you love the most.
39:08: Would you not be ashamed of what has come into your heart and what you have entertained in your mind? Maybe you're better than me, but I sure couldn't stand it.
39:24: See, we never realize how much we really owe to God's restraining grace.
39:30: We talk about this thing called common grace.
39:33: Common grace is that grace that God gives to all men, whereby he restrains us from being as wicked and vile as we could be.
39:42: You ever heard the phrase, but by the grace of God, there go I? That's a Calvinistic phrase.
39:50: Because the reality is, the only reason why you are in any condition that you are a blessing is because of the grace of God.
40:00: And when you pass that guy in the gutter and you look at him and you think, I'm just smarter, better, more adept.
40:07: You need to look up to God and say, thank you for your grace.
40:17: I think total depravity, in my opinion, is the easiest doctrine to prove.
40:22: Because honestly, not only because the Bible teaches it so clearly, but because it's affirmed every day in our own experience.
40:30: We know the wickedness of our own heart.
40:33: I don't have to prove to you the wickedness of your heart.
40:35: I just have to remind you.
40:38: Your heart proves it for me.
40:42: I've had people tell me they weren't sinners.
40:44: I laughed and then I proved them wrong.
40:50: And I wasn't a jerk, but I did say, have you loved the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength and loved your neighbor as yourself perfectly? From the time you got up this morning to this very moment? No, then you're a sinner.
41:03: That's the greatest commandments, and you've broken them today.
41:07: Say, well, God's a forgiving God.
41:09: We haven't gotten there yet.
41:11: We haven't gotten to forgiveness yet.
41:13: We got to get lost before we can get saved.
41:16: And if you don't recognize the depths to which God has to reach down to pick you up, if you don't recognize the depth of sin that you're in, that God has to reach down and pick you up, then you will never understand how amazing grace is.
41:30: If you don't think God did a whole lot to save you, you won't think a whole lot of what he did to save you.
41:39: So that's number one.
41:40: There is no good man.
41:41: Number two, there is no God seeker.
41:43: Look at look at the text as it goes down.
41:47: It says all have it says, excuse me, no, no one is righteous.
41:51: No, not one verse 11.
41:52: No one understands.
41:53: No one seeks for God.
41:56: I think that's one of the most frightening statements in the Bible, but it's true.
42:00: No one seeks for God.
42:02: And immediately people have objections to Paul.
42:05: They don't object to me.
42:06: They object to Paul.
42:06: They say, wait a minute, Paul.
42:08: I know people who genuinely seek God.
42:11: What about all these religious people all around the world who are genuinely seeking God? Let me tell you this.
42:18: You write it down if you want to, but put it in your mind.
42:20: At least everyone wants God's blessings.
42:25: No one wants God.
42:27: That's what the Bible teaches.
42:28: Everybody wants what only God can give, but nobody wants the God who gives it.
42:32: In fact, the perfect heaven for most people would be if God weren't there.
42:39: Because that's what they want.
42:40: They want heaven without God.
42:42: They want Christianity without Christ.
42:44: They want holiness without sinlessness.
42:46: They want all of those things.
42:48: Because they want the blessings that accompany it, but not the being of God.
42:52: I read to you from John Piper.
42:53: John Piper said this.
42:55: He said, the critical question for our generation and for every generation is this.
42:59: If you could have heaven with no sickness, with all the friends you ever had on earth, all the food you ever liked, all the leisure activities you've ever enjoyed, and all the natural beauties you ever saw, all the physical pleasures you've ever tasted, and no human conflict or natural disasters, could you be satisfied in heaven if Christ were not there? And the natural man says yes.
43:23: Because his desire is for the blessings of God without God.
43:30: So when somebody tells you, oh, I'm seeking God, but they are not seeking Christ, then they're not seeking God.
43:39: William Booth said this.
43:40: He said, the chief danger that confronts the coming century will be religion without the Holy Spirit, Christianity without Christ, forgiveness without repentance, salvation without regeneration, politics without God, and heaven without hell.
43:52: And where are we today? Several years ago, there became a new crop of churches that cropped up.
44:00: This was early 2000s, late 90s.
44:03: It was a crop of churches called Seeker Sensitive.
44:05: Remember that? Remember what? Maybe some of you don't.
44:09: Maybe you weren't in church politics at the time.
44:11: I've been around this a long time.
44:12: And the Seeker Sensitive movement was based on the idea that there's all these people who are seeking after God.
44:19: And what we need to do is we need to conform the worship service to attract the seeker.
44:25: So worship services quit becoming places where people came to worship and they became places where people came to be entertained.
44:33: The music went from holy songs that sang holy words to songs that were popular in popular culture.
44:39: And the songs became about Jesus being more like a girlfriend than a savior.
44:44: And the worship became more about people having their ears tickled by men who were telling them how to have a better marriage, how to make more money, how to be more prosperous, rather than how to draw closer to the person of the Lord Jesus Christ.
44:56: The church changed to become Seeker Sensitive.
44:59: And what it did was it became worldly and ineffective.
45:02: Now, it's effective in this.
45:04: It gathers a lot of people.
45:05: But a lot of those people come in lost.
45:07: They remain lost.
45:08: They die lost.
45:09: And they go to hell and wonder why they're there.
45:23: Those churches were based on a faulty assumption.
45:25: People seek God.
45:26: No one seeks God.
45:29: People do not seek God.
45:30: They seek His blessing.
45:34: There is no God seeker.
45:38: And you argue with me now.
45:39: You say, well, if no one seeks God, how does anybody get saved? Ah-ha-ha.
45:45: Here's the wonderful thing.
45:47: No one seeks God, yet people still get saved.
45:51: That means God seeks.
45:58: See, God is the initiator of salvation, not us.
46:04: In fact, the Bible says we come in a state of deadness.
46:09: We do not seek God.
46:11: We come in a state of deadness.
46:14: Remember what Paul wrote to the Ephesians? You were what? Dead in trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the power of the air, the spirit that is not at work, and the sons of disobedience, among whom we all lived, in the passions of the flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and of the mind, and were by nature children of what? Wrath.
46:39: Like what? The rest of mankind.
46:43: The picture most have of salvation is a sick man who needs medicine to get better.
46:47: The picture the Bible gives us is a dead man who needs to be resurrected.
46:52: That's the difference.
46:53: If you are lost, you're not sick in sin looking for medicine.
46:57: You are dead and you need to be resurrected.
46:59: You need to be born again.
47:04: People have the picture of the guy floating out in the sea.
47:06: Somebody throws him a life preserver.
47:08: All he's got to do is grab that life preserver and say, the life preserver is Jesus.
47:11: He's drowning.
47:12: Just grab onto Jesus.
47:13: That's not the picture.
47:14: The picture is this.
47:16: The man has already drowned.
47:17: He's already sunk to the bottom of the lake.
47:19: He has already had his bones picked clean by the carnivorous fish.
47:23: He has been dead for days.
47:25: And now the Lord comes and grants him life, gives life to his dead bones, and produces in him a new man.
47:37: That's the difference.
47:41: Jesus had a friend who died.
47:44: His name was Lazarus.
47:48: Jesus told his disciples, we're not going to go yet.
47:53: They argued, well, we got to go.
47:54: Your friend is sick.
47:55: The man whom you love is sick.
47:58: You can read this later.
47:59: It's John chapter 11.
48:01: Jesus said, no, we're not going to go yet.
48:06: Later, they find out he died.
48:08: Jesus said, now we can go.
48:10: Now we can go.
48:11: Now that he's dead, now we'll go.
48:14: And so they go.
48:17: Jesus gets there and the sisters of Lazarus are quite upset with Jesus.
48:23: You healed everybody else.
48:25: Why would you let your friend die? Everybody else got healed.
48:30: Why would you let him die? Jesus said one of the most beautiful things ever to the sister of Lazarus.
48:37: He says, I am the resurrection and the life.
48:39: He who believes in me will never die.
48:42: Do you believe this? And she says, I know he's going to be raised on the last day.
48:48: Jesus said, no, no, he's going to be raised today.
48:52: Jesus goes to the tomb and he says, Lazarus, come forth.
48:59: And you know what they said when he said, roll the tomb away? They said, by now he stinketh.
49:06: We can't open up the tomb.
49:07: He's been dead for four days.
49:10: Jesus said, roll the stone away.
49:13: He said, Lazarus comes forth and Lazarus wrapped up in the garments of the dead, walks out of the tomb.
49:22: And Jesus says, unbind him.
49:25: Beloved, if you don't understand that this is an allegory for how you came to faith.
49:30: I want you to know today that it is it's true.
49:33: It is a true story, but it is also an allegory because every one of us is dead and trespasses and sins, unable to save ourselves until the son of God, through the power of the Holy Spirit, says to our dead soul, you come forth and by grace we come.
49:53: And that is the work of God.
49:55: We who did not seek him were sought by him.
50:01: And he gave us new life.
50:04: Unless a man be born again, he will not see the kingdom of heaven.
50:08: Unless a man be born again, he will not enter the kingdom of heaven.
50:14: You see, another word for total depravity is radical inability.
50:20: That's the phrase that R.C.
50:22: liked to use, R.C.
50:23: Sproul.
50:23: He liked to use the phrase radical inability because this is what he wanted everybody to understand.
50:30: What our sin has produced in us is an inability to go to God on our own.
50:37: Because we don't want to.
50:40: Because we don't desire God.
50:43: By nature, we do not desire.
50:46: In fact, Jeremiah again, Jeremiah 13, 23, can the Ethiopian change his skin or the leopard his spots? The answer is no.
50:55: It's built into the question.
50:56: The answer is no.
50:57: Then also, can you do good who are accustomed to doing evil? The answer is no.
51:03: Only God can change the heart.
51:06: We can't change the color of our skin.
51:08: The animal can't change the spots on its back.
51:10: But God can change the heart.
51:13: And he does.
51:22: Last thing, and I'll draw to a close.
51:25: Not only does it say there's none who does good.
51:28: Not only does it say there is no one who seeks for God.
51:31: There's no God seeker.
51:32: The last thing it says is the saddest one of all.
51:34: It says there's no one who fears God.
51:37: Notice what it says.
51:38: Verse 18.
51:39: There is no fear of God before their eyes.
51:43: Not only is there no God seeker, there's no God fearer.
51:49: And understand this, beloved.
51:51: What leads us, what leads us to Christ, when he comes and opens our heart, is the first sense of awe and reverence of who he is and what he has done.
52:11: I'll give you the picture of that in your mind.
52:14: In the book of Isaiah, we sang about it this morning.
52:19: In the book of Isaiah, Isaiah chapter 6, the prophet has a vision of God.
52:27: Has a vision of the Lord.
52:28: I believe it's a vision of the Lord Jesus Christ.
52:30: And in that vision, it says, He saw the Lord seated upon his throne, high and lifted up.
52:37: The train of his robe filled the temple.
52:39: And around him were the seraphim that surrounded him, saying, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty.
52:44: The whole earth is filled with his glory.
52:46: And the prophet, who was the most holy and righteous man in all of Israel, put his hand over his mouth and said, Woe is me, for I am undone, for I am a man of unclean lips.
53:07: And I dwell among a people of unclean lips.
53:12: And mine eyes have seen the king.
53:17: You see, Isaiah finally understood who he was before a holy God.
53:25: He finally understood the distinction between creator and creature.
53:31: He finally understood he, who he was.
53:36: And he said, I am undone.
53:40: Beloved, I truly believe this.
53:42: When God saves us, we become undone.
53:47: And if you've never been undone, if you've never been confronted with your sin, if you've never been confronted with the distinction between creator and creature, I hope today that you are being confronted.
54:02: And I hope you recognize that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, recognizing who he is and who we are.
54:13: And he is the only one that can do that.
54:16: He is the only one that can take out the heart of stone, put in the heart of flesh.
54:20: He's the only one who can change us from an unbeliever to a believer.
54:25: He's the only one that can take us who are totally depraved and make us righteous in his sight by the work of his son.
54:32: He's the only one that can do it.
54:34: He is the only one who does do it.
54:35: And I want to remind you, as we're fixing to sing a song, just as we pray, we're going to sing.
54:40: There was a man who wrote a song, and you all know it.
54:44: Even if you're not a Christian, you know it.
54:47: He wrote a song called Amazing Grace.
54:51: And his name was John Newton.
54:55: And John Newton was a Calvinist.
54:58: Trust me.
55:00: Based on his writings, he was.
55:04: But listen to the words of the song.
55:07: Amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me.
55:18: I was lost, but now I'm found.
55:23: God found me.
55:26: I was blind, but now I see.
55:30: Now God gave me sight.
55:32: T'was grace that caused my heart to fear, and grace my fears relieved.
55:42: How precious did that grace appear the hour I first believed.
55:49: If you are a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, you are the beneficiary of his amazing grace.
55:57: And if you have not yet bowed the knee to the Lord Jesus Christ, I pray that his grace would enrapture you today and would bring you to your knees, that you would see him as the awe-inspiring God that he is, and that you would love him as is due his glorious grace.
56:18: Let us pray.
56:20: Father, I thank you for your word.
56:23: I thank you for the truth of your word, which tells us that we who are dead in trespasses and sins are made alive by grace through faith in Christ.
56:34: And we know that does not come from within, it comes from above.
56:38: Jesus said, unless a man be born again, unless a man be born from above, he will not receive the kingdom of heaven.
56:44: Lord, I pray for every person in this room that they would be born again.
56:50: Lord, for those who have been born again, Lord, that you would draw them closer to yourself.
56:55: For those who have not been born again, Lord, that you would do that which only your spirit can do.
57:00: Even Jesus said, the spirit is like the wind.
57:04: We know not where it comes from or where it goes, Lord.
57:06: We do not know the work of the spirit, but we know that he does work.
57:09: So, Lord, we pray that he would work among us today.
57:13: In Jesus' name, amen.