Bad News 

Welcome to No Compromise Radio Ministry, Mike Cavendroth, Engage. You can write me, mike, at nocompromiseradio .com. I have no idea what happened to our YouTube channel. It's gone. Working on it, but who knows if it'll ever come back.

Yet we still exist on radio, American Gospel, and that type of thing. The new book, Law Gospel, a primer, is out on Amazon. The Jesus and Cancer smaller version of The Cancer Is Not Your Shepherd is also out.

Both of those out within the last month or so. I'm especially excited about the Law Gospel primer. Lots of questions and answers, hopefully. So what I would do is I would ask a question in the category of law.

There's another section with the category of gospel, obviously, or practical things, errors. And it would say, you know, what is the law? And there will be a one-sentence answer to that. Then an expanded answer.

And then quotes, solidifying my answer. I don't want to be the guy that's making anything up. I don't want to be the guy that's got something new. Law Gospel stuff, a primer, not a primer. Looks like primer, but we're not trying to put a special coat of paint on or not trying to get an old musket to work.

We are—get a pump. Prime the pump, right? Prime the pump? Primer the pump? We are definitely not trying to do that. We're trying to teach, educate something simple, something we want you to remember. So it is a primer.

It's a prime example. It's a prim example. Primer, P-R-I-M-M-E-R, maybe that's the way we can kind of pronounce it. Law Gospel, a primer, it's 100 pages, super simple. It's the kind of book that I hope churches just buy 20, 30 of them and just hand them out to people.

Hand them out promiscuously. That's the goal of this book. Well, the bigger goal is so you can understand law gospel, so you're not whacking people with law only, so that you're not just giving the gospel, but you're giving the law to Christians to guide them.

And the list goes on. We've got questions in there like, what is natural law? What are the three uses of the law? What are the three kinds of law? What about gospel stuff? Should the gospel be heralded?

Is the gospel internal to us? And the list goes on.

Ephesians 2:1-10 as the Christian’s Need and Hope

Okay.

Today, though, we're not talking about that book any longer. We're talking about a different subject. And that subject is from a passage that is probably the most well-known passage in the Bible, question mark?

Could it be?

It is a passage that I've preached many, many times at Bethlehem Bible Church and other places. It is a passage that, if you understand it, you pretty much understand Christianity. So many nuggets of truth in this passage.

And it's a passage that I think if we walk through today and next time, you'd be able to teach it. If you can't preach this passage, well, you basically can't preach. But my goal is for you, if you're training your children, dads are on the dinner table, moms teaching their children the Bible, homeschool, you teach a Sunday school, whatever it might be, that you could open up your Bible in a pinch and preach this passage.

So if I were to say to one of my discipleship guys, I need you to preach this passage. Or let's back up a little bit. I need you to preach. And you don't have a sermon ready. You should just say, okay, I'll preach.

I can fill in. And this would be the passage you'd preach. Because you know the information here. And it's so simple in terms of its outline. And it's pretty easy to preach. Doesn't mean you can't mess it up, I guess, but it's pretty easy to preach.

And around Christmas time, we might ask the question, why did Jesus come to earth? And so you could say, well, he came to earth because we needed salvation and we couldn't save ourselves.

That would be good.

That's true. So from the human perspective, we couldn't save ourselves. We were needy and we needed to be saved. Then we could also ask the question, well, why did Jesus come to earth from the divine perspective?

I mean, what was it about God that would have him save us? Certainly not anything in us, but what is God like? What is his nature like? What is his essence like? Who is a God that would come and rescue?

What can we learn about God when it comes to divine rescuing? And the passage today, if you haven't guessed already, is drum roll. I have no drum roll here. That's a bad drum roll. Do crickets drum roll?

I don't think they do.

The drum roll is Ephesians 2, 1 through 10. Possibly the most famous verses in the Bible, in the New Testament. Again, I never get tired of this passage and therefore you will probably not get tired of me talking about it again.

You might not think it's some type of Christmas passage, but in fact, I really think it is because it explains our need of salvation. That's why Jesus had to come and God's character when it comes to salvation.

What's God like? Why would he come and rescue us? I mean, if he's only holy and just, why would he do that? He is holy and just, but he's not only holy and just. This is a good definition of Christianity, a good explanation of Christianity.

And in a day and age where there's just internal subjective spirituality and not an external historical religion, this is a good passage. This passage, Ephesians 2, 1 to 10, has some serious contrasts to it.

The first three verses talk about how we're dead in sin. And then we have verses 4 through 10 and it talks about how we are alive in Christ. It is a contrast to show how great our salvation is. We have a great need and then we have a great salvation.

If the need wasn't that great, then the salvation maybe wouldn't be that great. But here we have a great need and a greater salvation. Calvin said, to magnify his grace by comparison, he, Paul, focuses strongly on the riches of divine grace.

And that's what we're going to do today on the show. Obviously, Ephesians is written so that the church would hear it. It was a circular letter and people would read this letter in their church services.

And it is good for Christians to be reminded of their state. Not to wallow in it, not to become nostalgic about it, not to reminisce, not to wish we could go back to the old days. But just to realize, well, how great God is.

Just how great is God? Well, we'll find out when we realize the bad news first. Why did Jesus come to rescue us? Well, we couldn't rescue ourselves. And that's the bad news in chapter 2, verses 1 through 3.

To look back to what you used to be, Spurgeon said, to the hole of the pit whence ye were digged. And you read these verses and you think, help, help. That's the only thing that could help us is divine aid.

And if you'd like an expanded version of Ephesians 2, 1 through 3, we can go to a lot of places. But probably the most expanded version is Romans chapter 1, 2, and chapter 3, verse 1, all the way to verse 20.

So the first two and a half chapters of Romans, you can see exactly what's going on. But here's kind of condensed version that's good for us to remember because then we'll praise the Lord all the more.

When you remember your humble, tragic, sad state before salvation, then you'll realize, oh, I'm so, so very thankful. We need to talk about what we were like. Again, not to wallow in it, not to have our noses rubbed in it, but just to remember regularly.

Even Christians need to be reminded about what they were like before they were saved, right? And the answer is, of course, that's right. I don't know if I'm getting some kind of funny sounds here. If I take a breath, Spencer can take that out.

Mike Avenroth, No Compromise Radio Ministry. Three key words to summarize Ephesians chapter 2, verses 1 through 3. Those three words are dead, dominated, doomed. I don't know why I'm after alliteration these days.

It is kind of fun if you get alliteration to work. Dead, dominated, doomed. Sound good?

I don't know.

I think that will help you remember this. In other words, why is our salvation so great? Well, because we were in a needy state. And you were dead in the trespasses and sins. Dead in the trespasses and sins.

That's Ephesians 2, verse 1. That's the first word, dead. We'll get to dominated and doomed later. Our bodies, of course, were alive. But spiritually, we were dead. You were dead in trespasses and sins.

And pretty much, it's the Gentile readers in Asia Minor and... You know what? We're Gentiles. We'll talk about Jews in just a little bit. But when you're dead, you can't do much to save yourself. When you're dead, you're powerless.

Corpses can't do anything. This is not theological overkill. This is not an exaggeration. This is not hyperbole. This is spiritual deadness. And dead to anything spiritual. Dead to who God is. Oh, there's natural law.

There's conscience. There's creation that makes everyone without excuse. But in terms of wanting to fellowship and wanting to worship and wanting to understand the work of God, there's no response. The reflex hammer goes to the corpse knee and there's nothing.

It doesn't register. We're not just sick. We're not just under the weather. We were dead. Not kind of dead. Not half dead. Not partially dead. Not almost dead. Not a little dead. But we were dead.

D-E-A-D.

Dead. I've heard it described like a dog watching Niagara Falls and doesn't see anything good in it. And that's the way it was for us before we were saved. Real spiritual death. You take a corpse and you put a needle and jam it into the person's hand and there's nothing.

And so there's no response. You can yell at a corpse. You can plead or beg or plead, plague, threaten, but nothing's happening. And here Paul says you're dead in trespasses and sins. Plural. Here's trespass.

You know, you're going to go into somebody's yard you're not supposed to, hunting, no trespassing signs. And sins, there's a standard that you miss. There's a mark that you miss. You're shooting for the center of this target and it doesn't even hit the target at all.

These are sins of commission and omission. False steps and missing the mark. And when it comes to loving God and loving neighbor, we never did that. Not as unbelievers. We might have been nice to neighbors as unbelievers, but it's not for God's sake.

It was for other reasons. Purposely crossing the line spiritually, missing the target spiritually, dead in trespasses and sins. And it doesn't take you very long to figure out we did just exactly what Adam did.

Right? Don't touch, don't eat. Did he say don't touch? That was Satan that said that. And that's actually very interesting. Could Eve picked up the forbidden fruit, thrown it around, juggled it, tossed it, rolled it around, smashed it?

I think she could probably do whatever she wanted with that, but she was not to eat it. Here we are dead in our trespasses and sins. No spiritual ability. That's the point. No way to save ourselves. I mean, if we need to be saved, we can't be saved from ourselves even.

Adam willfully transgresses the law, and we're dead in Adam. And the 1689 London Baptist Confession said, from this original corruption, whereby we are utterly indisposed,.

Disabled,.

And made opposite to all good, and wholly, W-H-O-L-L-Y, inclined to all evil, do proceed all actual transgressions. We really transgress. We really trespass. And New Year's resolutions don't work because how are we going to lead a better life if we don't have any life?

We're darkened in our understanding. Paul goes on to say in Ephesians 4, our hearts are hardened. Ephesians 4. We give ourselves over to sensuality. Paul goes on to say. And essentially, as Jesus would say in John 5, we're unwilling to come to Christ, to have life.

We don't seek after God. We're in the flesh, and those in the flesh cannot please God. 1 Corinthians 2, a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them because they are spiritually appraised.

We needed rescue. We needed help. Why did Jesus come? Well, we couldn't save ourselves. We couldn't commend ourselves to God. Total spiritual inability. I read one place that we were as spiritually blind as a cyclops with his one eye poked out.

Without faith, it's impossible to please God. And we were like Herod in Acts chapter 12, not giving God the glory. And of course, we all believe that people are sinful. We have security. We have locks.

We have lawyers. There's law and order. And we realize people are bad. And unbelievers are dead in trespassance and sins. Now, if you don't get this doctrine right of depravity, whole depravity, spiritual inability, lots of things can go wrong.

You don't get things like unconditional election properly understood, and more. But if you get this doctrine, and you don't have to relish it, you don't have to revel in it, you just have to believe it, you're going to be on safe ground.

Calvin said, no one knows the 100th part of the sin that clings to his soul. First thing we need to know when it comes to our old state, so that we might praise him properly, is that we were dead. Spiritually dead.

The second word that we need to talk about is dominated. Dominated. And there's a threefold domination or slavery found in verses 1 through 3. We were enslaved, and we couldn't get out. We have a spiritual straitjacket on, and we needed help.

Dominated by the course of this world. That's the first domination. The one who is enslaved to the world. That's what we were. In which you once walked following the course of this world. So we were walking, we were living as a lifestyle, not to God, but following something else.

We weren't following God, we were following the course of this world. This enslaving world. Our lives were dominated by a lifestyle that was just on the horizontal level, not the vertical level. We were captured, we were enslaved to this value system of the world that's valueless, essentially.

And we just were formed by it. We were slaves to it. We were besties with the world. We're friends of the world. Of course, then we know we're enemies of God, according to James chapter 4. BFFs to the world.

Not only that, there was another dominator, and that was Satan. Following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience. Not by choice, but we were drug along.

It's like a chain in the nose. The prince of the power of the air. Ephesians goes on to talk about the wiles of the devil. We were slaves to Satan. Paul said to the Corinthian church, regarding unbelievers, whose minds the God of this age has blinded, who do not believe, lest the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine on them.

Deaf, dumb, and blind spiritually. Following the ruler of this world. It says in 2 Timothy chapter 2, that people are ensnared by Satan, and having been held captive by him, to do his will. Dancing the devil's tune.

Saying yes sir, to the devil. He practices sin, belongs to the devil. 1 John 3, 8. The whole world lies in the power of the evil one. 1 John 5, 19. Satan says jump, and we say how high. The spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedient.

Sad. Our spirits might be dead, but this spirit isn't dead. We fell for the lie that we're free. We fell for the lie that we weren't bound. We fell for the lie that we had free will, and we were free to do whatever we wanted, and we were free from God.

But we were slaves to the world system. We were slaves to Satan. And the last domination, is a slavery to your own sin. To my own sin. Dominated by Satan. Dominated by the world, and dominated by my own sin.

Verse 3. Among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind. Just self-absorbed, self-gratification, selfish. It says among whom we all once lived.

So now Paul is including Jews as well. And we were compelled to just live this way. Our lust took over. Our craving took over. Our desires took over. The dictates and demands of our own lust, it just took over.

And pretty much what we did is just indulged. That was our CV. That was our resume.

What do you do?

You just indulge the flesh. And the sad thing about that, when your mind is set on the flesh, it's not only death. But when you do that, you're enslaved. Listen to 2 Peter 2, verse 19, talking about unbelieving false teachers.

I guess all false teachers are unbelieving. Promising them freedom while they themselves are slaves of corruption. That's what the false teachers do. For by what a man is overcome, by this he is enslaved.

And we're overcome by sin. And Romans 6, 17 says, you used to be slaves to sin, but we've become obedient from the heart. Slaves of sin, now slaves of righteousness. Jesus answered them, truly, truly,.

I say to you,.

Everyone who commits sin is the slave of sin. We are acting according to our natures when we are unbelievers. Why did Jesus come to earth? Well, he had to if we were going to be saved, because we were dead and dominated.

There's no way we could get out. And the third word, and our last word for the day, today's show, is doomed. Dead, dominated, doomed. We are by nature children of wrath, even as the rest, Jew and Gentile included.

How hopeless this picture is. How awful this picture is. Some people call the spawn of disobedience, the progeny of disobedience. Could it be worse? Could it be described in a bleaker fashion? Dead, dominated, doomed?

I don't think the answer is yes. It's about as bad as it gets. We needed help. Why did Jesus have to come? Well, we couldn't save ourselves. So from our perspective, we needed help. God is holy. Punishment is real.

There is a judgment. Please, we need rescue and deliverance. But is there anything in God that would lend himself toward that? That's the question. I like what John Gershner said. Could God help us possibly?

God? That is the most preposterous appeal of all. It is against him that we have done all this sinning. It was his law we violated. It was his commands we disobeyed. It was his image we had ruined. It was his purposes we were seeking to frustrate.

And it was under his wrath we now were. It was his awful judgment from which we were seeking escape. Why would God ever rescue us from the judgment in which he placed us? If he is a just God, we must fear.

There is no hope for us. Why would God ever rescue us from the judgment in which he placed us? And that's the second part of this in chapter 2, verses 4 through 10. It's almost like Paul can't stand it anymore.

He's got to turn the corner. He's excited. He can't wait to tell people the good news. Gershner goes on. And then it happens. While the thunderings and lightnings of Sinai are crashed all about us, while we are waiting to be destroyed any moment with our hands over our ears, our bodies trembling and our fearful eyes unwilling to look up, suddenly the storm stops.

The sun breaks through the fleeting clouds on the now inviting mountain and a lonely cross with a solitary figure.

Speaking peace.

Appears.

Will God help? Can God help? I mean, the soul who sins will die.

Ezekiel 18.

Proverbs 13, the way of the transgressor is hard. What if the next verse started with the word and? We're dead, dominated, doomed, and God judged us. What if it was so that God had no other choice but to punish?

Except we know the word is but. But? I mean, isn't that great? Isn't that kind of shocking and unexpected? Beacon of hope, one man said. Words that four-year-olds can understand, but God. With men, salvation is impossible, but with God, all things are possible, Jesus said.

Well, my name is Mike Avendroth. This is No Compromise Radio Ministry. And there's good news, because we're going to see next time that God is gracious, God is kind, God is loving, and God is merciful.

Good news for those trusting in Christ.

Amen? Amen.