Total Depravity

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I want to invite you to take out your Bibles, turn with me to the book of Romans.
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And we are going to be in Romans chapter three.
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Last week, we began a study on the truths of Reformed theology.
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I want to begin by reiterating what I said last week about the reality that some of you may get uncomfortable by this study.
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And I have actually seen this study lead to anger, dissension and plain out arguing.
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However, I challenge you to simply weigh everything which is said during this series with the Scripture, be willing to put aside traditional presuppositions and allow God's Word to speak freely.
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That is the only way to have a truly biblical theology is to put aside your presuppositions about what you think God must be like, because this is what you think he should be like and actually go to the Word of God to see what he is like.
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I've often mentioned in my teachings something called the doctrines of grace, and while I have mentioned and taught on all of these doctrines in the past, I readily admit I have never done an in-depth series of sermons on all five of them, which I'm going to start doing today.
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This is the first time I've ever done five sermons in a row where we took each of the points of the doctrines of grace and actually done a sermon, a full sermon on each one, even though I've preached each one at various times.
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The doctrines of grace are sometimes called the tulip.
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The tulip gets its name because it makes up an acrostic T-U-L-I-P.
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Each of the letters stands for a different point of doctrine.
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And while I do believe this is one of the things about Reformed theology I think that's most difficult, because I think any time you have something that's so easy to remember, people remember it and often remember it wrong, remember wrong things about it.
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The tulip is something that you may hear people mention, and that's why I've chosen to use it for five sermons.
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We're going to look at each one of the letters, but it's important to point one thing out.
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If you hear somebody talk about Reformed theology, you hear somebody talk about the tulip.
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Sometimes you hear them call it the doctrines of grace, which I which I usually refer to it as.
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One of the things you need to remember is that these five teachings, these five doctrines, the tulip, the T-U-L-I-P, and it stands for total depravity, unconditional election, limited atonement, irresistible grace and the perseverance of the saints.
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When you look at those five doctrines, what you need to understand is those five teachings, this acrostic that we have, tulip, did not come from the Protestant Reformation as a positive affirmation of doctrine.
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It actually came as the negation of a heresy which cropped up after the Reformation.
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The heresy was called Arminianism.
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There was a group of people called the Remonstrants.
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The Remonstrants were a group of people who followed after a teacher called Jacobus Arminius.
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Arminius was teaching.
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He had rejected the difficult doctrines of the Bible, like man's total depravity, God's unconditional election.
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And he had created his own system of theology, which the Remonstrants later founded five doctrines on.
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They took the teachings of Arminius and they created five teachings based on what he had that what he had surmised from the scripture.
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Not long after that, a synod was convened and the synod came together to examine the teachings of Arminius.
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It was called the Synod of Dorchek or the Synod of Dort for short.
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And when that synod came together, they examined the teachings of Arminius.
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They found him to be in error biblically.
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And as a result, they produced five responses to the teachings of Arminius.
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Those five responses became known as the TULIP, the Total Depravity, Unconditional Election, Limit Atonement.
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That's the response to what Arminius had taught.
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And later, those would be called the Doctrines of Grace.
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So this is the background of where these doctrines come from and where why they are so important.
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They're a response to false theology.
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And I must tell you, Arminianism reigns today.
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That heresy, which was responded to back during the Synod of Dort, was proved to be in error from scripture, was revived during the later part of the 1800s, early part of the 1900s, has found its way back into the church through the crusade movement and through not the crusades, but the actual what they call evangelistic crusades started by men like Charles Finney and people like that who started these movements.
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And as a result of these movements, Arminianism has won the day.
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And I will tell you, most every church that you will go to is influenced, if not in whole, at least in part by the heresy of Arminianism.
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It just is.
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And am I willing to call Arminianism a heresy because I think these are bad, mean, nasty people? No, I believe Arminianism is a heresy because heresy simply means something that is unbiblical and it's being taught as the Bible.
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It's heresy, it is wrong, and as R.C.
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Sproul has so masterfully pointed out, to believe wrong about God is a sin.
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Most people don't ever think of it that way.
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We think of sinning as an action.
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But Jesus said we can actually sin in our hearts and to have a wrong view of God when the Scripture says something about God and we believe something different about God, that is creating an idol and idolatry is sin.
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So we need to be sure that what we believe about God is what the Bible teaches and not what our presuppositions are forcing us to believe.
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So this morning, we're going to look at the beginning of these five doctrines.
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I sort of cleverly titled the text Tiptoeing Through the Tulip, and that's the five lessons we're going to learn today is on total depravity.
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And I invite you to stand as we read the text.
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Romans chapter three, beginning at verse nine.
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What then? Are we Jews any better off? No, not at all, for we have already charged that all both Jews and Greeks are under sin, as it is written.
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None is righteous.
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No, not one.
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No one understands.
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No one seeks for God.
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All have turned aside.
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Together, they have become worthless.
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No one does good.
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Not even one.
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Their throat is an open grave.
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They use their tongues to deceive.
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The venom of asps is under their lips.
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Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness.
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Their feet are swift to shed blood in their paths are ruin and misery.
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And the way of peace they have not known.
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There is no fear of God.
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Before their eyes, father, as we seek.
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To truly understand this text and its implications for our view of man, our anthropology, help us, oh, Lord, to not sit and consider our objections, but to rather listen for the positive affirmations of your word and allow them to influence us.
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And I pray, Lord, that they would.
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I pray that your Holy Spirit would teach our hearts and use the scripture to mold our minds.
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I pray that you keep me from error, Lord, for I'm a fallible man and capable of preaching error.
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And Lord, I pray that you would keep me from that sin.
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And father, I pray for the people's hearts that you put heads around them, only allow in the truth and that their hearts would be open to it.
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In Jesus name, we pray.
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Amen.
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Anytime you use terms like total depravity, people will respond in various ways.
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Most commonly, people respond with a raised eyebrow.
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Though you say something like, well, the Bible teaches the doctrine of total depravity, and people will just look at you as if to say, well, I've never heard that before.
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I've read the Bible.
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I went to Sunday school.
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I spent my years as a youth in the youth group.
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Unless you're at Sovereign Grace Church, I don't have one, but I've spent my time at church.
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I've never heard that phrase total depravity.
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I don't think that that's in the Bible.
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And truth be told, the term total depravity is not in Scripture.
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However, neither is the word Trinity.
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The word Trinity is nowhere found in the Bible, yet the concepts from which we derive the doctrine of the Trinity are found completely in Scripture.
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So, too, are the concepts from which we derive the term total depravity.
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And before we really get into the text this morning, I want to make sure we have a right understanding of the definition of that term.
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Total depravity is important when we understand first what it does not mean.
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When I say that mankind as a whole, bar none, is totally depraved, I do not mean that man is as bad as he could be.
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For, of course, that would be false to say that statement.
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If I said man, if I said total depravity means man is as bad as he could be, then the reality is any one of you could give me an example of why that's true.
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Even if you could think of the worst person in history, and often we think about Hitler because of the last hundred years, if any man exemplified evil, if any man exemplified hatred of his fellow man and the willingness to do heinous things as a result of that hatred, Hitler, bin Laden, men like that come to our minds.
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But if you think about Adolf Hitler, even Adolf Hitler could have been worse.
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I know it's hard to imagine.
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He killed 11 million people, I believe.
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But at the same time, he could have killed 12 million.
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He could have killed 13 million, given the opportunity he probably would have.
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I always joke, I say, I imagine Hitler loved his mom, you know, and the reason I make that is because I say, even though we talk about total depravity, it's not the same as we would say utter depravity.
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Hitler's bad, but he could have been worse.
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When we talk about total depravity, what we are talking about, very simply, is that every person is born as a fallen son or daughter of Adam, that we have all inherited a sinful nature.
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And we are bound by that sinful nature until God sets us free.
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That's what we mean when we say total depravity, all human beings, all human beings are sold under sin, according to the scripture, all human beings are sinful.
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And in that is where we get the term total depravity.
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There is not an aspect of our lives that is not influenced by sin.
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Our thought life is influenced by sin.
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Our behavior is influenced by sin.
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Our speech is influenced by sin.
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Our actions towards one another are influenced by sin and so on.
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And all human beings have been given by God something called grace, which keeps us from being as bad as we could be.
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Every human being in the world is a recipient of what we call common grace.
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Jesus masterfully identified common grace for us in the book of Matthew, chapter 5, verse 45.
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In Matthew, chapter 5, verse 45, he says this, he says, God makes the sun rise on the evil and on the good.
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He sends rain on the just and on the unjust.
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And what Jesus was saying in that statement, Matthew, chapter 5, is he was simply saying that every person in the world has received an inkling of the grace of God.
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They have all received a certain amount of the grace of God.
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And that is what keeps man from being as evil as he could be.
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Imagine Hitler.
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Imagine if God had taken all restraints off of Hitler.
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How bad he could have been.
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But now be honest with yourselves.
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Imagine if God took all restraints off you.
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Imagine if your conscience was seared and you had no concern or love for your fellow man.
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Imagine if your if your heart was turned to stone and you were engaging your life purely on the lust of the flesh.
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Do you think your depravity would demonstrate itself? Oh, please don't sit there prudish and think that you that it wouldn't.
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Here's here's my proof of proof of total depravity.
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Do you want it? How many of you would be willing right now to let me take a videotape of every thought you had this week and put it on the screen? Every thought that you had this week and put it on the screen for all to see.
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Every one of you, even the sweetest person I know, Miss Florence, a second ahead.
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No, there's my I mean, you are one of the nicest people I know.
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And she's no, we would not.
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And what did Jesus say about the thoughts that our very thoughts can be sinful? Jesus said about lust, he said, if a man looks at a woman to lust after her, that is adultery in his heart.
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He said, if a man hates someone, then that is tantamount to murder.
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Right.
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So when we talk about total, it's not a hard thing to prove if you're honest with yourself.
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And beloved, I'm speaking to you as a group of people who have confessed Jesus Christ.
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By and large, this group, I know we have children here and some people who may not have yet confessed Christ, but the majority of you have confessed Christ.
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And yet, you know, the battles you deal with your flesh.
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Imagine a person who is not restrained by the Holy Spirit of God, who is simply restrained by the common grace of God.
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And this is how we see the world that we live in and what it has turned into.
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Total depravity to me is so it's not hard to prove, because even if the Bible didn't teach it, I could look into the world and into the media and look at what is happening.
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And I could demonstrate it based purely on experience.
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But thankfully, the Bible doesn't ask me to prove this based on experience.
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The Bible gives us a very clear exposition of total depravity.
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But the question is, though, yes, nobody here would probably argue.
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Nobody here would probably argue that they're not a sinner.
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No one here would argue that they're perfect.
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Yet where the argument comes in and where the debate comes in is how much this sinful nature inherited from Adam, which we are all shackled under, how much does that sinful nature affect man? How does the sinful nature affect a person? And this is something you need to think about.
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Because we talk about total depravity.
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How does that affect us? Total depravity leaves us in a state of moral inability to respond to the call of the gospel.
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Here again, total depravity, our sinful nature leaves us in a state of moral inability to respond to the call of the gospel.
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How do you know that, Pastor Keith? Did you make that up on your own? That sounds like I've never heard that from the Bible.
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Yes, you have.
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Jesus said, John 6 and 44.
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No one can come to me unless the father who sent me draws him and I will raise him up on the last day.
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What did Jesus just say? He said, no one can come to me.
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And all of you guys who sat in English class and you stuck your hand up and you said, teacher, can I go to the office? He said, I'm sure you can.
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But that's not what you're asking.
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May I go to the teacher? May I go to the office? Right.
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May is entitlement, allowance.
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That's what may is.
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Can is ability.
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And when you look this passage up and you look in the original language and you read what Jesus said, when he says, no one can come to me, you will see that the word can there speaks of ability.
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No one has the ability to come to Christ unless God acts on their heart first.
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That is proof positive of a moral inability in man.
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We cannot change ourselves.
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We cannot redeem ourselves.
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We cannot rehabilitate ourselves.
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This is why Jeremiah in Jeremiah 13, 23 says he asked the rhetorical question, can the Ethiopian change his skin or the leopard change his spots? Neither can you do good or accustomed to doing evil if you are bound, sold under sin, you are there until God sets you free.
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That's what we mean when we talk about total depravity.
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And this doctrine is not popular.
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I already see some shifting in some seats and some discomfort.
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Good.
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It shouldn't excite us.
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It should enlighten us.
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Because the reality is, if this is what the scripture teaches, it doesn't matter what I think.
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It doesn't matter what my opinion is.
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It doesn't matter where I came from or what I was taught when I was in Sunday school.
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If this is what the Bible teaches and I believe different, I am wrong.
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And it's expounded so clearly in this passage.
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And the reality is I have sometimes I have a hard time just jumping into a text like this because there's so much said before it that sets up the context that I almost feel like I should have preached chapters one and chapter two before we even deal with this.
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Let me give you a quick synopsis of Romans one and two.
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Romans one, Paul makes the point that every person in the world is a sinner.
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He says, for the wrath of God has been revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and all unrighteousness of men.
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And he goes to this long demonstration of mankind sin.
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And then in chapter two, he makes the point that even though the Jews had the law that didn't make them less sinful, it actually made them more sinful because they had a law which told them not to do it.
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And they still did evil.
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And thus they were even more culpable because they knew what they were doing was wrong.
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And yet they still did it.
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So in chapter one, he gives the demonstration that the Gentiles are sinful.
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Chapter two, he gives a demonstration that the Jews were sinful.
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And guess what? There ain't no other group.
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Gentiles are sinful.
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Jews are sinful.
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That's the only two categories in which Paul speaks in the book of Romans.
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He speaks of two categories, Jew and Gentile.
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And there ain't nobody falling in any other category.
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There ain't no third division.
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That's it.
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Humanity is broken up into two divisions by Paul in this book.
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That's the two.
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And then he gets to chapter three.
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And this is why he says, what then? Are we any better off? And the word Jews is actually in the ESV.
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I will readily tell you that is an addition that the translators made.
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The original Greek simply says, are we better off than they? But the ESV adds the word Jews, the NASV I don't think does.
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Many texts don't.
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I don't agree with the addition of it.
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I don't think it's necessary, but it does help some because Paul is making a distinction.
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Are we as Jewish people any better than they? No, not at all.
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For we have already charged that both Jews and Greeks are under sin.
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Everyone understand context now? That's the context.
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This is Paul's point.
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This is where he has built up to.
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And he said, we have already charged.
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This reminds them that the first two chapters that he has already written, he's already he's already demonstrated this.
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Now he's he's brought his message to an apex.
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He's he's crescendoed his message to this to this strong finality.
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Which is verses nine through 18.
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And what is he telling them? We have already charged that the Jews and the Greeks, which Jews and Gentiles, the two separations of mankind are all under sin.
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Now, what is the word under they're referred to? Why does he say under sin? What does it mean? Well, here he is speaking somewhat metaphorically.
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We talk about when we go to work, if you have a regular nine to five job or maybe you at home with your bills and things like that, your payments, we talk about being on top of things.
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You go to work, you say, I'm on top of things today.
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Right.
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Or if you say with my bills, I'm on top of the bills this month or whatever.
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You say that.
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What's another language that we use? We talk about being buried.
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All right.
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If I said I'm at work and I'm swamped, I'm buried or man, I'm buried under my bills.
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Right.
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It's language.
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It's very typical language under suggests being weighted down.
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Paul is saying that every person is weighted down by the burden of sin.
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There is no person who does not have the albatross of sin around his neck.
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It is not unique to the Jews.
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It is not unique to the Gentiles.
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The weight of sin hangs around the neck of every person.
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It is a universal burden that all humans share.
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This depraved nature, this is why we call it total depravity.
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Not only does it affect the whole person, it affects the whole of humanity.
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It is total.
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Sin is a part of every person's life and it affects every part of every person's existence, their mind, their will, even their body is affected by sin.
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Why do you die? For by one man, sin entered the world and death through sin and death spread to all men because all sin.
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That's I mean, your body decays because of sin.
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You have bad relationships because of sin.
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Your world is destroying itself.
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Because of sin, so what I want to show you today from this text.
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I want to show you four areas of the human condition that Paul shows are depraved and must be renewed by God, they cannot be renewed by me, they cannot be renewed by my desire to change myself or better myself.
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These are areas that must be renewed by God if it is to be a true biblical renewal or what we would call a regeneration, a rebirth.
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Number one, and if you're taking notes, this is the four points.
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Number one, human conscience is depraved.
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Human conscience is depraved.
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Look at verse 10.
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As it is written, none is righteous.
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No, not one.
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No one understands.
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No one seeks for God.
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All right.
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This is one of the most extensive indictments on the human condition in print.
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And it's one of the reasons why I believe the Bible is true.
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Because human beings typically are not honest about their condition, we have a tendency as human beings to paint a picture of ourselves as noble and good and righteous.
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And Paul here is absolutely honest about the human condition.
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When judged by the law, no one can be called righteous when judged by God's law.
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That's why he says none is righteous, no, not one.
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Do you know why I'm making such a to do about this? I'm making it to do about this because people argue against this.
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I've heard arguments against this text.
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They say, oh, well, Paul's just quoting the Psalms.
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And and the Bible does say, you know, David was a man after God's own heart.
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And the Bible says this about this person.
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The Bible says this about this person.
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So this isn't really a universal statement.
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This is a statement of likelihood.
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There's a lot of people that are likely this way, but it's not a universal thing.
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If there is if there isn't if this word, this statement is not universal, the phrase none is righteous, no, not one.
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Can you go back to that one? The statement none is righteous.
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No, not one.
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If that is not a universal statement, language has no meaning and the scripture cannot be understood.
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Do you understand? If that is not a universal statement, then language has no meaning.
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So anyone who tries to argue and say, no, well, the Bible says David was a man after God's own heart.
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David chased the heart of God after God graced David with regeneration.
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That is the only reason David would ever chase the heart of God.
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It's the reality, folks.
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It would not be another way.
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It could not.
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And we'll learn more as we go, but I just wanted to make the point this verse to me is the most frustrating because people just wax on about how it's not everybody.
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It can't possibly not be not everybody, but it cannot not.
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But this has to be everybody.
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Because it says none is righteous, no, not one.
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And then it goes on to say no one understands.
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No one seeks for God.
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I'm sure I don't know how this verse is preached in a lot of churches, especially churches that call them seek and call themselves seeker churches.
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What is a seeker church? They say, well, our church is designed for people who are seeking God.
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Well, you must be empty.
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I'm not trying to be sarcastic.
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I'm being real.
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This verse says there's none out there.
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And you say you've based your whole ministry model around these people.
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What so many would argue that mankind is incurably religious and is always searching for God.
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And I don't I don't disagree that man is incurably religious.
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He is homo religiosus.
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He is the religious being.
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That is that he is identified as the only being that worships a higher creator.
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You've never seen a deer get down and worship anything.
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You've never seen an ape get down and worship anything.
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We are.
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That's why we're homo sapiens, the thinking being.
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We're also homo religiosus, the only being which worships.
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So, yes, that's true.
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However, people would say, well, well, people are always religious, they're always seeking God.
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No, no, no, no, no.
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Don't mix apples and oranges.
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Being religious does not mean a person seeking God.
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Thomas Aquinas made this point so clear.
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He said, while people will seek the benefits that only God can give peace of mind, eternal life, truth and happiness, they do not seek God.
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While people will, while people will seek the benefits that only God can give eternal life, peace of mind, truth and happiness, they do not seek for God.
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They seek the blessing without the being.
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How do I know that's true? How do I know that's true? Well, one, the Bible says it to experience supports what the Bible says, because when I stand up and I preach about eternal life and I preach about blessings and I preach about peace of mind and I preach about happiness, everybody gets excited and we're right on board.
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We're ready to go.
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We're happy because that's what we want.
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But as soon as I say there is a God of this world who has created this world and he has created man in his own image and that image has been marred by sin and that the majority of the world will spend eternity in hell because of that sin, people recoil in anger.
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Yeah, that's all true.
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I mean, people recoil because they don't want God.
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They want the blessings.
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Without the being simply watch as people recoil, watch as they shout obscenities at pastors who proclaim.
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And this is why I say, oh, there's a bunch of people out there, they're just seeking for God.
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And a man stands up and preaches.
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He preaches about sin and about righteousness and about holiness and about judgment.
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And they curse at him and they throw things at him and they bar him from public locations and they bar him from speaking.
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My favorite pastor to listen to is Dr.
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James White.
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Most of you guys know that Dr.
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James White is he he doesn't even have an opportunity to preach at a lot of conservative Christian places.
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Because he's willing to say things that even the most conservative among us are not willing to say, Paul Washer, a lot of you guys love Paul Washer.
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Paul Washer has a very, very small scope of influence because he is so honest about the word of God.
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No one is righteous.
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None seeks for God.
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It's a universal statement, universal negative.
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The only reason anyone has ever sought for God is because God sought for them first.
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This is why Jesus said no one can come to me unless it is granted to him by my father.
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John 665.
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We don't seek God, God seeks us.
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Number two, that was human conscience.
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Human conscience is depraved.
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Number two, human character is depraved.
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Look at verse 12.
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Human character is depraved.
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All have turned aside together.
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They have become worthless.
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No one does good, not even one.
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How many people do we talk to? Oh, man, he's a good person.
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He does good all the time.
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I use this as an analogy.
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I always use pirates as an analogy.
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Not because, you know, a few years ago, pirates were all the rage.
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People, you know, people love to watch the Pirates of the Caribbean movie.
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I always thought a good analogy.
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Pirates are a good analogy because people say, oh, man, those unbelievers.
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Yeah, they don't believe in Jesus and they hate God.
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But they're such good people.
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Because they're nice to one another, they say, hey, he did he did work on my deck and he was such a nice guy or whatever.
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Actually, there's a code of ethics among pirates.
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Pirates typically work together to keep the ship afloat.
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They work together to keep the other pirates fed.
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They work together to keep the ship on course.
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And they work together to steal from other boats and to pillage and to plunder.
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They work together.
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And there's a code of ethics among the pirates.
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But they're still maritime criminals.
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Well, how does that matter? Pastor Keith, here's how it matters.
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Every one of us.
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Yeah, we live by a code of ethics.
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We live with other human beings.
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We live by societal laws.
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And typically, the average person doesn't go to jail.
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The average person goes to work on time, comes to work on time, takes care of their family.
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They live by society's laws.
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They live like the way they're supposed to live for the most part.
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But let me tell you something about the reality.
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Apart from faith, it doesn't please God.
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People say, well, I spent my whole life taking care of my family, going to work every day, getting up every morning.
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I paid the bills.
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I made sure my family was fed.
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I was a good man.
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No.
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Not according to God.
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Romans 14, verse 23, for that which does not proceed from faith is sin, for that which does not proceed from faith is sin.
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I once I floored a guy one time because I said, I never believe he's done a good thing in his life.
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Man, I've taught the Boy Scouts, I've worked at the Women's Club or the Moose Lodge.
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I've done this, I don't think I've worked at the Women's Club.
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Sorry, Pat.
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I've done this, I've done that, I've done these things.
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I said, apart from faith, it is impossible to please God.
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As such, you have done nothing that has ever pleased God.
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Is that offensive? Yes.
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Would I use that as an opening line and evangelistic opportunity? Maybe, probably not.
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But is it true? If the Bible is true, it is.
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If the Bible is true, it is.
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Only when we are enabled by grace can we please God.
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Human conscience is depraved.
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Human character is depraved.
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Two more and we'll be done.
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Human conversation is depraved.
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This one's kind of easy.
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It says their throat is an open grave.
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They use their tongues to deceive.
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The venom of asps is under their lips.
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Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness.
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Now, Paul, what he's doing here is he's beginning to give physical manifestations to his earlier allegations.
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He said mankind is not righteous.
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He said mankind is not good.
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No, not one.
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He said that none of them seek after God.
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And now he's saying, how do we see this demonstrated? We see it demonstrated in how they talk to one another.
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He said their throat is an open grave.
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And he says their tongues deceive.
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And he says their lips have venom in them and their mouth is full of curses and bitterness.
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You know, one of the things that Facebook has done for the world.
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Jumping straight to application, one of the things that Facebook has done for the world is it has shown how people can truly be when there is no consequence.
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How hateful people can be with their speech when there is no consequence.
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Because, hey, I posted on Facebook and I'm hidden behind my computer screen and my keyboard.
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I'm a keyboard commando.
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I can say what I want.
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I'm protected.
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I'm surrounded.
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And as much as I think it is a useful tool for getting prayer requests out and things like that, I do think it has done great damage to relationships.
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But only because it has allowed people's depravity to be what it is.
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One of the things that keeps people from saying things that they want to say when they're in front of other people is most people have a fear of conflict.
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Most people have an internal fear of what's coming next.
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And they're afraid to escalate a situation because they don't know if the conflict is going to lead to a punch in the face or something or worse.
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So people will fearfully not escalate a situation when they're with someone else.
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But when they're behind the keyboard, what do they do? Well, I'm protected and now I can let all my vitriol out.
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And we see the open grave let loose with its decaying, rotting flesh.
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What was our mouth created to do, beloved? Our mouth was created to praise God.
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Our mouth was created to sing songs to God, was created to call out praises to God, to pray to God.
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Our mouth was created to glorify God.
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And instead, we insult God with our curses and we hurt others with our bitter speech.
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And it's just a sign of human fallenness.
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Think of a person.
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Think of this.
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Put in your mind.
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Think of a person who's full of lies.
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Their lips are full of poison.
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They're always saying ugly things.
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Their mouth is filled with bitterness and cursing.
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Think about that.
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How would you describe that person? You would use one.
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You would use this word.
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You would say that person is hostile.
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Right, this is what Paul is trying to get us to understand about the relationship of man to God.
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The relationship of man to God is hostile.
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Towards God, and we see it in our lips.
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This is why Jesus talks about what being in the heart comes out of the mouth.
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Old seminary professor said, what's in the well comes up in the bucket.
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It's true.
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Dr.
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Powers, that's right.
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Number four, and we'll finish.
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We've seen the human conscience is depraved totally.
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We've seen human character is depraved.
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We've seen human conversation is depraved.
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And finally, we see human conduct is depraved.
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Verse 15, their feet are swift to shed blood and their paths are ruin and misery.
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And the way of peace they have not known.
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Think about Noah.
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Noah's whole situation was because man was allowed to do whatever he wanted to do in accordance with his conscience.
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And the Bible says they did nothing but evil continually to the point wherein God had to bring a flood of destruction just to destroy the very sin that had so caked upon the face of his world.
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Think about that.
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What did God have to institute after the flood to keep such a thing from happening again? What's the first institution that comes as a result of Noah coming off the off the ark and worshiping God? What is the first institution which is set up? Capital punishment, capital punishment is established after the flood.
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Why? Because the sinful nature of man must be reigned in by law.
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Beloved, you know, there is only one thing that as a society, we couldn't go a day without.
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I want you to think about this as a society.
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There's only one thing we could not go a day without.
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We could go a day without traffic lights.
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We could go a day without electricity.
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We could go a day.
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We've done all these things one day without justice, one day without law.
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Imagine one day.
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All the police officers stayed home one day, all of the prison gates were opened one day and you would never be able to pick up the pieces because human conscience, character and their conduct is depraved.
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Look at the hurricane that hit Katrina when law was abandoned, lawlessness took its place and mankind's depravity was put on display for the world to see.
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Why? Because there's no fear of God before their eyes.
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Verse 18 is the final verse, and this is the verse which brings about our greatest condemnation as a people, as a humanity, as as.
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Creations of God, the biggest failure in mankind is that there is no fear of God in our eyes, and this is why this is why.
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Why? We sin as we do.
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Beloved, Paul didn't make these things up.
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Paul didn't produce these teachings out of the air.
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All Paul has done in all of these verses is quote the Old Testament.
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So if you think Paul is giving some radical new anthropology that doesn't fit with the rest of Scripture, that Paul is establishing some new view of man that no person had ever had before, then you need to understand, beloved, that all he's done is quoted his Bible.
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Verses 10 and 12 is Psalm 14 and Psalm 53.
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Verse 13 is from Psalm 5, Jeremiah 5 and Psalm 140.
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Verse 14 is Psalm 10.
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Verse 15 is from Proverbs 1.
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Verse 15 and 17 is from Isaiah 59.
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And verse 18 is cited from Psalm 36.
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All of it straight out of Scripture so that Paul could prove the point that he made in Romans 1 and 2, there is none righteous, no, not one.
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Not only do we have antipathy towards God and apathy towards God, we have rebellion and rejection of God.
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What is it, then, that causes men and women like you and me to worship him? What is it that would cause the unloving, uncaring, sinful person to turn towards God and truly worship him as he is? What would take a person from this sinful condition explained in Romans 3 and bring them to the condition of loving the God of the Bible? Sola gratia.
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It is by grace alone.
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You are not saved because you're smarter than the next person.
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You're not saved because you're better than the next person, more deserving than the next person or less of a sinner than the next person.
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You are saved because God chose to extend to you his grace.
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Next week, we're going to get into why God makes that choice and how God makes that choice.
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And we're going to talk about the subject of election, a subject very divisive in the church, but one that I hope you will all come with ears to hear.
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That's right.
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Father, we thank you again for your word.
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We thank you for this opportunity to have heard it.
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And I do pray that this has been a convicting message.
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I pray that you would use it to remind everyone here of the pit from which you reached down and picked us up out of.
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And Lord, if there is one here who does not know you, who are still in that pit, I pray your grace upon them.
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I pray you would use this message to convict their heart.
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And Lord God, that you would give them spiritual life, eyes to see and ears to hear.
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Lord, we know that you are sovereign.
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We trust your sovereignty in all things.
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We give you glory and honor in Jesus name.
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We pray.
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Amen.
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Beloved, let's stand.
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If you have a need, please come as we pray.