the book of Romans, the second chapter, and we shall read the first sixteen verses. Romans chapter two, reading verses one to sixteen. Let us hear the word of God. Paul writes, You therefore have no excuse, you who pass judgment on someone else. For at whatever point you judge the other, you are condemning yourself. Because you who pass judgment do the same things. Now we know that God's judgment against those who do such things is based on truth. So when you, a mere man, pass judgment on them, and yet do the same things, do you think you will escape God's judgment? Or do you show contempt for the riches of his kindness, tolerance and patience, not realizing that God's kindness leads you towards repentance? But because of your stubbornness and your unrepentant heart, you're storing up wrath against yourself for the day of God's wrath, when his righteous judgment will be revealed. God will give to each person according to what he has done. To those who, by persistence in doing good, seek glory, honor and immortality, he will give eternal life. But for those who are self-seeking and who reject the truth and follow evil, there will be wrath and anger. There will be trouble and distress for every human being who does evil. first for the Jew, then for the Gentile. But glory, honour and peace for everyone who does good, first for the Jew, then for the Gentile. For God does not show favouritism. All who sin apart from law will also perish apart from the law. And all who sin under the law will be judged by the law. For it is not those who hear the law who are righteous in God's sight, but it is those who obey the law who will be declared righteous. Indeed, when Gentiles who do not have the law do by nature things required by the law, they are a law for themselves, even though they do not have the law. since they show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts now accusing, now even defending them. This will take place on the day when God will judge men's secrets through Jesus Christ, as my gospel declares. Amen. for the blessing of God the Holy Spirit upon his word. In our evening service we are looking at the opening chapters of the book of Genesis at least from chapter 4 to chapter 11 and we have been doing that for some weeks now and we are present in chapter 6 in the early part of that chapter just before the coming of the flood. Last week we looked at the marriage the intermarriage of the sons of God with the daughters of men and saw what that means and how God reacted to it and what it has to teach us. And I'd like us to look at an interesting verse in chapter 6 verse 5. The Lord saw how great man's wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time. We're told here that the Lord saw, and that may seem to be stating the obvious, because God of course sees everything that happens. But often in the Bible when this phrase is used, it is telling us that God is going to do something decisive. The Lord saw that man's wickedness was great in the earth, and then we see in our next study that God said, I'm going to wipe man off the earth. Or again in verse 12, God saw how corrupt the earth had become. And then he says, I'm going to put an end to all people. Or in Exodus chapter 3 verse 4, the Lord saw that Moses had gone over to the burning bush. God called to him from the bush. So God sees and God acts. What did God see? What did the Lord see? He saw how great man's wickedness on earth. had become. He saw the actions of human beings. He saw the wrong things that human beings were doing on the earth. Their wrong behaviour, their sinful activity. And the Lord saw more than that we are told in the text because he looked beyond the actions of people to their minds and hearts and thoughts. He looked inside them. And he saw not only how great man's wickedness on the earth have become, but he saw that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time. So he saw that human beings were filled with a comprehensive, pervasive evil. That was not just something shown in their actions, but it was profound within them, their inner being. Their inclination was evil. That Hebrew word Yetzir means a deliberate course of action. Here is a very solemn, strong, serious verdict on God's perspective on human beings and it is one of unrelieved blackness and evil and guilt. A very strong text. And as a result of what he sees, God says, I will wipe mankind from the face of the earth. He was grieved that he had made man on the earth, and his heart was filled with pain. Here is a statement of what we could call the biblical doctrine of total depravity, and that is to be our subject this evening. The total depravity of these human beings. Now we might be inclined to say, well, perhaps this just referred to that generation of human beings who lived before the flood. Perhaps that was a peculiarly wicked and godless era in the world's history and that this assessment just applied to that one time and isn't meant to be taken further. And yet we see in Genesis chapter 8 Verse 21, when God has sent the flood and when the only human beings left on the earth are God's chosen people, Noah and his wife and his three sons and their wives, that God comes with the same assessment. Genesis 8, 21, looking at these eight individuals, he says, every inclination of man's heart is evil from childhood. So this assessment is meant as God's permanent verdict on human beings. Every inclination of the thoughts of the heart of every human being are only evil all the time. We find it supported again in the book of Psalms that we were just singing from Psalm 14. The Lord looks down from heaven on the sons of men There is no one who does good, not even one. Psalmist tells us that there is not one human being on the surface of this planet, of all the hundreds of millions of men and women and children, there is not one who does what is good. Can that be true? Do you believe that? That's what it says in the Bible. We should struggle with this text this evening. Every imagination, every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil. All the time. all the time, morning, noon and night, seven days a week, every month, every year, only evil, only evil, never good, never a moment of good, never a good thought, never a good desire, never a good wish, never a good action, only evil all the time. There is no one who does good. No one. People who sacrifice their lives for others don't do good. People who give their lives to looking after lepers don't do good. Nurses, doctors don't do good. No one does good. Can we take this seriously? Surely our mind is filled with questions and objections. And that's why I thought it would be useful, as it were, to step aside from our normal exposition of Genesis to look at this particular text this evening and to try to see, very briefly, if we can consider this biblical doctrine of total depravity. And I'd like to do that in the time that remains. And I'd like to begin with misunderstandings of the doctrine of total depravity. Misunderstandings, because it is a very misunderstood doctrine. Some people misunderstand it in this way. They think that the doctrine of total depravity means that everyone is as bad as they can possibly be. And that would seem to be what the words are saying, total depravity. That's a very common misconception. I quote for example Robert H. Schuller, a well-known American preacher, minister of the Crystal Cathedral in California, and someone who's very keen on positive thinking. Schuller says, if a person is totally depraved, he ought to be shot, gassed, or hanged by the neck till dead. This doctrine is irresponsible, unintelligent and destructive. So Robert Schurer doesn't like the doctrine of total depravity. Now of course we have to say that that is a misunderstanding, that is patently untrue, and that no one who has held this doctrine has ever thought that it meant that everybody is as bad as they can possibly be. No one is as bad as they could possibly be. There has never been a human being on this earth who was as bad as they could possibly be. There have been some very wicked people, but they could certainly have been worse. Adolf Hitler possibly fed his pet dog. He might have kicked his pet dog. He wasn't as bad as he could possibly be. The doctrine doesn't mean that. It doesn't mean that people have no knowledge of God's will. Paul says in Romans 2.15 that the Gentiles show that the requirements of the law are written in their hearts. Everyone, everyone in the world has some awareness of right and wrong. People know that it's not right to steal, it's not right to kill. It doesn't mean that people don't have consciences. In that same verse, Romans 2.15, Paul says of unconverted people, their conscience is their witness. Every human being is a conscience. Our consciences are damaged, but they still work to some extent. It doesn't mean that people don't practice many virtues. People do things that are kind and loving and good and noble. and self-sacrificial and challenging. Romans 2.14 The Gentiles do by nature the things required by the law. There's a clear statement. People do good things. Jesus says in Matthew 7.11 You, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children. We only need to read history, we only need to read literature, we only need to look at the world around us. To see dozens of people who are kind and loving, thoughtful, sensitive, helpful, who are rebuked to us in many ways even though they don't make any profession of religion. People who in natural terms are a lot nicer than some of us. So this doctrine of total depravity isn't stupid. Calvin wasn't a moron. It's not foolish. It's not saying something that is unreal nonsense. Don't let us be put off by silly misconceptions of the doctrine that people will bring up against it. Let's come secondly to the explanation of the doctrine. What does it mean? One of the oldest illustrations is still the best. Take a glass of water. Clean water, I hope, I think it is. It's only half empty now, or half full now, but here's a glass of clean water. Imagine that it's full. And I take in between my two fingers and my thumb a pinch of stinking mud from outside and I drop it into the water and stir it with my pen so that the water is dirty. Now it's not as dirty as it might be. It could be a lot dirtier. I could take a handful of mud and push it in. I could fill the glass with mud. I've just taken a pinch. The water is not as dirty as it might be, but there is no clean water in that glass. All of the water has been affected by the dirt. It has been totally affected. It is totally unclean in the sense that there isn't any clean water in that glass. It has all been affected by the pinch of dirt. And that basically is what the doctrine of total depravity is saying. It's not saying that we are as bad as we could be, but it's saying that every part of us has been affected by sin. There is no part of our beings that is completely pure and holy and sane and right as it came from the hand of God. Sin has infected every single part of our nature. Our emotions have been affected by sin. We laugh at things we shouldn't laugh at. We cry at things we shouldn't cry at. We become jealous when we shouldn't get jealous. We become resentful when we shouldn't be resentful. We become frivolous when we should be serious. Our emotions are sinful. They don't work properly. They have been affected by sin. They've been damaged. Our affections, as the Puritans called them, have been affected, have been damaged. We don't want the right things. Or when we want the right things, we want them in a selfish way. Or we want too much of them. Or we want them when God doesn't plan to give them to us. Our consciences have been damaged by sin. They don't work properly. Sometimes they work, but even then it's not as they should work. We do wrong things and our consciences don't trouble us. More controversially and more importantly in today's world, our minds have been affected by sin. And that is very important, important for you young people. Our reason has been affected by sin. Unbelievers have an unspoken assumption that the human reason is a completely accurate effective instrument. They try to decide things by reason. Reason is considered unspoiled, undamaged, the judge of all. You try to witness to an unbeliever, they will argue on the basis of reason. But the Bible tells us that our reason is darkened. Our understanding has been damaged. We don't reason correctly. Human beings don't have a sinless reason. And also important, our will has been damaged by sin, by the fall. Again, that is controversial today. We cannot come to God. We cannot trust in Christ. We don't want to. In other words, it's exactly what the text is saying. Every inclination of the thoughts of our hearts, that means our inner being, is only evil all the time. Because we are totally depraved, we cannot ever please God in any way, naturally, outside of Christ. We can't do it. We can't do anything that God considers righteous. We can't do anything that in that sense is good in the eyes of God. We pollute everything we touch. Many of you will remember a phrase which our late friend Bertie McCune often used in his prayers. He said, on everything we touch we leave the print of unclean hands. And that's a statement of what we're thinking about this evening. No matter how hard we try, our sin ruins everything. Paul says in Romans 8.8, those who are in the flesh cannot please God. So this is a grim reality. Our text tells us that human beings by nature are totally sinful, utterly helpless and completely displeasing to God. The Lord saw how great man's wickedness on the earth has become and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart is only evil all the time. Only evil all the time. I now come to objections to this doctrine before some of you put your hands up. You may have other objections but I want to mention two objections which seem pretty obvious to me which need to be answered. One we have touched on already. What about the many good things people do? What about hearts of gold, the people who appear in the hearts of gold program? What about the kind, noble, loving, sacrificial things? Throughout this world in which we are living at the moment, nurses are tenderly caring for the sick. Firemen are risking their lives to get people out of burning buildings. People are laboring decently and honestly to make this world a better place for human beings. Is it not monstrous to suggest that none of these things are pleasing to God? Do we not seem to have a contradiction in scripture? The psalm says there is no one who does good. Paul says the Gentiles do do good. And Jesus says, you know how to give good gifts to your children. How do we reconcile this? Are people doing good or are they not? Well, we would have to say immediately that these things are good in themselves. They are good in themselves. And it is right for people to do them. And we should encourage them to do them, and we should commend them for doing them, and we should show our appreciation for the good things that people do. But not one of them outside of Christ is acceptable to God. Not one of them is pleasing to God. That's what our text is saying. That's what the psalmist means. Let me illustrate. A husband brings home to his wife a bunch of beautiful expensive flowers. Beautifully wrapped. Cost a fortune. She's delighted. It was her anniversary. Wedding anniversary. She thought he'd forgotten. but he hasn't forgotten. He's gone and got her favourite flowers, the flowers he knows she likes and he gives her those flowers and she's delighted and she puts them in a vase and puts them in a mantelpiece and every time she looks at them she's filled with pleasure and joy. The kindness of her husband in buying her flowers. Another husband buys his wife an identical bunch of flowers same shop, same price, same wrapping, brings them home and she puts them in a vase, in a mantelpiece and every time she sees them her eyes fill with tears and she shudders with shame and anger and she's wounded and she's broken and those flowers are like a cruel stabbing knife to her because that woman has begun to realize that her husband's having an affair with another woman and he has brought those flowers home in a cynical attempt to deceive her and to pull the wool over her eyes and to hide from her his shameful activity. They're the same flowers, they're from the same shop, they cost the same amount of money, it is the same action. It's the same action exactly. But in one case the action is motivated by love and appreciation. In the other case, the action is motivated by falsehood and deceit. Is it a good thing for a man to buy his wife a bunch of flowers? Is it? Well, it depends. It might be a very wicked thing. It might be a piece of cynical deceit. It depends on his motive. It depends why he's doing it. someone cuts your body open with a knife. Is that a good thing or a bad thing? Well I suppose it depends whether it's a mugger on the street or a surgeon in an operating theatre. It's the same cut, the same depth, the same length, the same pain, the same sharp knife. But in one case the motive is to heal, it's love, it's care, In the other case, the motive is to kill and to rob. It's the same action. My friends, it's not enough to look at actions. The action may be good in itself. It's good to give someone a present. But under certain circumstances, that present could be the most cruel and cynical thing you could do. And I think that helps us to understand that it helps us to understand why the Bible tells us that all our righteousnesses are filthy rags in God's sight. Because when we're outside of Christ, we don't want to obey God. We don't want to love God. We don't want to honor God. We're not doing it to please God. We're not doing it for His glory. We may be doing good things, in themselves, but how can they bring pleasure to God? When we are neglecting God and disbelieving God and dishonouring God. The Puritans said that for an action to be good it had to have three things. A right motive, a right rule and a right end. It had to be done from a right motive, faith. It had to be done by a right rule, Scripture, and it had to be done for a right end, the glory of God. And anything that was not done from faith, by God's word for His glory, was of no value in His sight. Hebrews 11, 6, we're told, without faith, it is impossible to please God. It is impossible to please God. So that's what the psalmist means. He's not being foolish. He's saying that in the eyes of God, as God looks down, He isn't pleased with these good actions. Because they're being done by people who are living their lives in rebellion against Him. And they're not doing them for Him. They're not seeking to please Him. The virtues of the unconverted are what Augustine called splendid sins. Another objection comes to mind. Is this not a counsel of despair? Does this teaching of total depravity not give people an excuse for not responding to the gospel? Certainly some people misuse it that way. I remember travelling in the Highlands of Scotland in the county of Sutherland with a minister friend and we picked up a tramp and as we were driving along, this actually was the only hyper-Calvinist tramp I have ever met, but we were driving along and as we were driving along the minister tried to urge Christ upon this man and this man is a rag, you know, stubble and filthy, but he'd obviously been taught somewhere. And he said, well minister, the catechism says we're dead in trespasses and sins, and until God gives me light, there's nothing I can do. And he was just going to go on his happy way, and if someday, if light dawned, he would believe, until then, what can I do? He said, what can I do? He was misusing the doctrine. But my friends, I would say to you that the very reverse is the case. We do not look for help until we are hopeless. We do not look for help until we are hopeless. The most deadly delusion that human beings suffer from is this, that we can help ourselves. That we can please God. That if we really, really try our hardest, we'll be able to please Him. And as long as we think that, as long as people believe that, they will keep trying, and keep trying, and keep trying. And it's only when this truth dawns upon us that we can never, ever, ever, please God, ever, in ourselves, never, all we can do is commit splendid sins. And that no matter how hard we try, No matter how much effort we put into it, our highest and noblest achievement is still not good in God's sight, and never can be. And it's only when we realize that, that we turn to Christ. If someone wants to go to Alcoholics Anonymous for help, and they do help people, they've got to begin here. I am an alcoholic. And very often people will come and say, well, no, I'm not an alcoholic. I mean, I can stop whenever I like. And they'll say, we're not going to help you. Don't even come. Unless you're willing to admit that you can't help yourself, that you're in the grip of it, then there's hope. And this doctrine of our depravity, of our ineradicable sin, is the one thing that brings us to Christ. And that brings us lastly and briefly to the implications of the doctrine. I emphasize again that it is a desperately grim doctrine. It demolishes all human systems of religion and philosophy and betterment. It knocks them down. It says that if we're left to ourselves, we can only ruin ourselves. It punctures the empty optimism of our humanistic world. We're told that human beings are going to make the world better. They're not going to make the world better. That isn't going to happen. Because human beings are wicked. And they'll make the world worse. It cannot happen. This doctrine explains the history of the world. Explains the wars and the cruelty and the struggle. Explains the world we live in today. Explains what's happening in this island. Explains what's happening in Westminster. It explains what's happening in Eastern Europe and in Africa and all over the world. It explains the present of America. It explains these things. We're not surprised by them. We're not shocked by them. That's what the Bible says human beings are. That's what they're like. But it puts us in touch with reality. And that's a good start. It shows us who we are. And it forces us to cry to God for life and mercy. And that's even better. Best of all, it brings to us the good news of the Gospel. That God has sent his Son to save lost, helpless sinners. And we keep forgiving that we were lost helpless sinners. And God has sent his spirit to bring them to faith. And the doctrine of total depravity demands the new birth. And our only hope is that God will plant a new life within us, a new character, a new being, a righteous, godly, holy nature That He'd take away our heart of stone and give us a heart of flesh. The Gospel tells us He does that. He does that. It's a wonderful doctrine. It's ultimately comforting. Instead of a daunting, hopeless struggle for self-salvation, it tells us of a mighty Saviour from Heaven. who has done all for us that we couldn't do, and who changes us and makes us new creatures. For the old has passed away, and the new has come. And we rest on Him for all we need. We need to lay hold by faith on this, that in Christ I'm a new creature. All that you can say about my past is true. All that you can say about my sin is true. My weakness, it's all true. And more! But it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. Because by God's grace I'm in Christ. And I'm a new creature. Where are you this evening? Have you wakened to the truth about unconverted human nature? Are you still living with the illusion that somehow if I try a bit harder I'll get myself sorted out? You won't. You can't. But you don't need to. That's the good news, because we have a Saviour. May God help us to give thanks for the mighty Lord who has come to us in our spiritual guilt and death. May He give us a sense of compassion and pity for those around us who are still dead in their sins. And lead us to speak to them of the Christ who can change them. Amen.