God's Word has infinite power and God's Word is true from the beginning to the end. And today on Encounter God's Truth, Bible teacher Dr. John Whitcomb presents part one of a message called The Necessity of God's Power. The Bible clearly explains that every person possesses a sin nature that renders us totally depraved. This desperate condition requires God's perfect ability in order to make it possible for anyone to believe the gospel and be saved. This can never be accomplished by our feeble attempts to manipulate or trick people into accepting the gospel. In this lesson, Dr. Whitcomb unfolds the place that arguments and evidences for the Christian faith should have in our witness in light of both the total depravity of man and the inspiration and authority of the scriptures. If you have your Bible, you'll want to follow and listen carefully as we turn to a number of different passages in both the Old and New Testaments. I'm your host Wayne Shepard inviting you to go with me now inside the auditorium at Appalachian Bible College in Mount Hope, West Virginia for this installment in our series Biblical Apologetics. Here's Dr. Whitcomb. And friends I greet you once again in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ and what a name that is. Through him the whole universe was created including the angels at the dawn of Earth history. And through him, the whole world is sustained, upheld, and directed. He's the Lord of history. Through his precious blood, we have been redeemed, confirmed by his bodily resurrection from the dead, his ascension to the right hand of the Father. And he is coming again, perhaps today, to catch his bride away, to meet him in the air. Are we ready? And he will come and establish his kingdom upon the earth. He will be the king of kings, the Lord of lords. He is not only the alpha, he's the omega, the beginning and the end. And what a name well known in the third heaven, the name we must know to approach God, the father. Now, friends, we are faced in this world with an impossible commission. The Lord Jesus said, make disciples of all nations. And then he added some more impossible things. These disciples are to openly public identify with the three persons of the triune Godhead, the second person being Jesus of Nazareth. Now for a Jew, that would be an impossible commitment. You mean that mere man who died on a cross? How could he be the second person of a triune Godhead? And so we're to be baptized into the name of the Father and into the name of the Son and into the name of the Holy Spirit. And we are to teach people to observe all things whatsoever He has commanded us. You say, that is impossible, impossible. In a godless world, a selfish world, a satanically dominated world, a sinful world, And therefore, he guarantees it will work. And lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age. And without him, we can do nothing. And that's our purpose these days together, dear friends, yesterday, and I trust as well tonight. How do we accomplish the impossible task? Certainly not by shriveling it down and minimizing it so it's manageable by finite minds like ours. No, no, we don't compromise anything. Jesus said, you're to teach them all things whatsoever I have commanded you. You say, well, Lord, there's so many things in here that I don't even understand that are so difficult. And God says, well, dear child, that's right. I have recorded things that are really impossible for you to fully fathom. and God is ultimately incomprehensible by finite minds and we'll never know him exhaustively, but thank God through the Holy Spirit and the Word of God we can know him sufficiently and increasingly in the process of sanctification as we grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ and his wonderful, wonderful work and his ministry through the Holy Spirit on our behalf from day to day. Now, friends, we have seen already, I trust, that every effort to make people believe fails. And there are enormous movements today among Christians, even born-again Christians, not just nominal Christians, such as dominate, I'm sorry to say, the intelligent design movement, for example, that are using rationalistic methods to reach depraved hearts and minds. And I have to always say to people who ask about this term depravity, depraved hearts and minds, what does that really mean? Well, friends, from God's perspective, and that is the way the whole Bible is written from Genesis to Revelation, from God's perspective, the human mind is so poisoned and distorted through sin that no matter how nice we become through hopefully positive environmental influence of families and culture and society, like in our beloved nation of America, we are totally incapable of making ourselves acceptable to a thrice holy God. And that's the whole point of these passages that frankly in the Bible seems so shocking, to me at least. Listen to this one. Job 15, verse 14. What is man that he should be clean? And he which is born of a woman, that he should be righteous. Behold, he putteth no trust in his saints. And I believe that reference probably is to angelic beings, righteous angels, primarily. Yea, the heavens are not clean in his sight. Even the third heaven is contaminated, as we shall see, for a special reason. Almost unbelievable. How much more abominable and filthy is man which drinketh iniquity like water? Now we had a huge aquarium in our home, huge by personal standards, under a beautiful window where the sun would frequently come in and just inflame those goldfish in there. And our six children just loved watching those goldfish slither through that water. And we often asked ourselves the question, do those fish know that they're wet? What do you think? Well, first question, are they wet? Do they know they're wet? Why not? They're immersed in that medium to such an extent they don't even know they're in it. That's the point. And a fish discovers, if we can put it that way, how wet he is when you take him out of the water, and he flounders around desperately longing for his normal natural environment. And that's God's shocking picture, you see, of us and our sin nature. We're so immersed in a sinful world, Satan's world, with people of the world, possessed as we are of a sin nature that we're really not even shocked, we're not even aware of it, we're not even offended by it, we're not even depressed by it. We just sort of drink iniquity like water and it's just a normal way of living. And when God takes us out of that through regeneration and increasingly through sanctification, we become more and more sensitized to what sin really is so that you can read what the Apostle Paul said, which I read with amazement. And I think maybe he's really not serious when he said, I am the chief of what? Sinners. You see, this is ridiculous. I mean, you're just playing games with words, sir. Chief of sinners? Why, you're an apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ, and you've been gifted with prophetic messages and capacities to listen to and communicate the will and mind of God uniquely, and you're an apostle. And what do you mean you're the chief of sinners? That is a genuine mark of self-awareness through the Holy Spirit's illumination. Now, of course, friends, we can become totally defeated and depressed if we look at this from just one perspective. We must do like the, I mean, the apostle Paul, while admitting he was the chief of sinners and not worthy to be an apostle and the least of all the saints, et cetera, et cetera. Nevertheless, he knew that in Christ, He had infinite power and that's the perfect balance. Never depending on ourselves or anything in ourselves, but only and totally and exclusively on Him. Would you turn with me to Ephesians chapter 2? Look at verse 1. And you hath he quickened, or made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins, dead. And I say, well, Lord, isn't that somewhat of an exaggeration? Keep reading. Wherein in time past you walked according to the course of this world. Now, this is a definitive statement of all people who are unsaved. According to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now work within the children of disobedience and that is disobedient people. Among whom also we all had our conversation, our manner of life and times past in what watch it now in the loss of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind. And we're by nature, the children of wrath. That is, we are under the wrath of God apart from Christ. even as others, and you say, well, Lord, that's serious. Well, friends, turn over to Ephesians 4 and look at how the Spirit of God brought to the pen of the Apostle Paul words that even more emphatically clarify what total depravity is. Ephesians chapter 4, let's begin. With verse 17, this I say therefore and testify in the Lord that ye henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk. Now walk, you understand, means just a manner of life, just your whole course of life, your day-by-day routines. In the vanity of their mind, having the understanding darkened being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them because of the blindness of their heart, who being past feeling have given themselves over unto lasciviousness to work all uncleanness with greediness." Hmm. You say, well, Lord, that must be a description of radical sinners. Is that a picture of every person who is not born again? And friends, here we have to be careful. You don't look at a person, a loving person, a lovely person, apparently an honest person of good reputation, and start applying verses like this directly to that person. You don't look at a newborn baby and say to the mother, Total sinner. Careful in this. But the Bible says drastic things, even about children, that only the blood of Jesus can solve. Psalm 51, Behold, I was shapen and iniquity and sin did what? Did my mother conceive me? That doesn't mean she was especially sinful person. or that becoming a mother is a sinful act. It means I have an inherited, I have an infinitely deep problem that cannot be traced back to something I did when I was younger, a teenager or something. No, I was sinful. I had a sin nature I inherited from my mother and father who inherited their sin nature from their parents. And by the way, let me just give a side point on this. The reason Jesus had no sin nature is not because Mary was sinless. but because the Holy Spirit overshadowed her and controlled that aspect of her mother's nature. He inherited her nature, and through her, you see, a connection with the human race, especially back to David the king, but he did not inherit her sin nature. By the way, if she had no sin nature, then how could she have been born? From a sinless mother? Who was born from a sinless mother? This is total absurdity. You see, a stupendous miracle occurred at the conception of Jesus. He is the only baby ever born sinless in the history of the world or ever will be. You say, sir, these are very disparaging things to say about beautiful babies. Well, friends, that's why, of course, we know that Every baby that's conceived is not created by God, but what? Procreated through sinful parents back to Adam who sinned. In Adam we all sinned, Romans 5.12. This is a very difficult Bible teaching to fathom. But I believe, as many of us do, that by a special work of God's grace, and this has problems with it too that I can't fathom, that unborn babies that are aborted or newborn babies or children earlier than the age of accountability, whatever that might be, are provided for by Christ who says, they behold the face of my Father, of their angels in heaven. I mean, there's something about this that is very mysterious. David said about his baby that God killed. the first baby from Bathsheba, you remember. I will go to him. He cannot come to me, but I'll go to him. And that has to mean heaven. I'm gonna see my baby. Now friends, unless we think deeply about this, you see, we're hopeless in terms of being a witness to anybody and leading anybody to the Lord. if we allow for one moment the thought to cross our mind that people aren't quite as bad as the Bible seems to say they are, and therefore I can manipulate them, and I can illuminate them by my brilliance and my superior knowledge and understanding, and I can outwit them and outsmart them, and they will have to be, what, converted through me. You say, well, I'd never think that, but there are thousands of Christian leaders, friends, who operate on that basis today. It's called rationalistic apologetics. It's a horrible sounding word, isn't it? But here's what the Bible says, that that mind that you're going to change by better arguments, by intellectual proofs of the truth of the Bible and Christianity and and arguments even for wonderful obvious truths like the bodily resurrection of Jesus will fall on total dead rock. No response. If it is your word and your opinion and your theories and your arguments and your evidences that are being used. One of my former students and a great servant of God today, Dr. Reynolds Showers, has put it this way. In his doctoral dissertation he wrote at Grace Seminary 30 years ago, quote, the heart, when considered figuratively, I mean, not this organ that pumps blood, you understand what the Bible means usually by heart, is the inner control center of the human being. Out of it flow all issues of life, Proverbs 4.23. It is the location of human character, Luke 6.45, where Jesus said, the good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth what is good, for his mouth speaks from that which fills his heart. Therefore, it is the aspect of man about which God is most concerned. Think of these statements. First Samuel 16, 7, God sees not as man sees, for man looks at the outward appearance. Uh-oh. But God looketh at what? The heart. And only he can do it. There is no x-ray machine ever designed that can look at the heart of man, figuratively speaking, as the Bible does. Impossible. And the only one who could do it wrote a book to tell us what it's like. First Thessalonians 2.4, Paul said, so we speak not as pleasing men, but God who examines our hearts. Now the heart serves as the seat, the center, the control center of all spiritual aspects of man's life. Proverbs 3.5, trust in the Lord with all your heart is the control center of all moral aspects of our life. Mark 7, it's from within, Jesus said, out of the heart of man that evil thoughts proceed. It's the center of all intellectual aspects of man. There's no real difference in the Bible between your heart and your mind. I mean, we often use that expression and that's fine, but the Bible doesn't make any great distinction. The mind is part of the heart, the intellect. Hebrews 4, 12, it's a discern of the thoughts and intents, the thoughts and intents of the heart. God's word is. Your volitional aspect as a human being, Daniel 1.8, but Daniel made up his mind that he would not defile himself. He made up his heart in Hebrew. Emotional aspects, Proverbs 15.13, a joyful heart makes a cheerful face. But when the heart is sad, the spirit is broken. And I say, Lord, I'm just I'm very, very astounded at the constant emphasis in your word of our inability to change people's hearts or even their minds, which is a part of their heart. You remember, friends, what Jesus said on the road to Emmaus to two of his disciples. I mean, these were believers after his resurrection who didn't even know that he was going to be raised from the dead and really didn't quite understand why he had to die on the cross. I mean, all the apostles were utterly confused about those events, as you know. And he said in Luke 24, 38, why do doubts arise in your heart? Turn to Isaiah 64 for a moment. This is absolutely awful. You say, well, Dr. Whitcomb, why are you focusing on these awful statements? Well, because God knows we need some special help here, as we shall see in just a moment. Isaiah 64, 6, but we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags. All our what? Not our sins, but our righteousnesses. Everything we think that we are doing well When closely examined by the Triune God, turns out to be what? Poisoned by different kinds of attitudes, motives, perspectives. That's why when we even pray in the name of Jesus, the Holy Spirit has to intercede for us with what? With groanings which cannot be uttered. I mean, he has to edit, purify, purge our prayers of everything selfish and unbiblical and not God honoring. By the time it arises in the third heaven, hopefully there's some words left. I often think of that like, you know, like incense arising from the altar. God will not accept anything into his holy heaven that isn't purged, purified and perfect. My, well, Isaiah goes on to say in chapter 64, verse six. And we all fade as a leaf, and our iniquities like the wind have taken us away. And there is none that calleth upon thy name that stirreth up himself to take hold of thee, for thou hast hid thy face from us and has consumed us because of our iniquities. Now this is Isaiah, probably the greatest Old Testament writing prophet, you see, whose sin nature was judicially purged away in that confrontation with God in chapter six, one of the most amazing encounters with the living God ever recorded. And it's Isaiah who says, we, our iniquities, not somebody else's. You all know Jeremiah 17, nine, the heart of man is what? deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. Like God said of the human race before the flood. And by the way, God makes it clear. He didn't wipe out the human race except for one family for no real legitimate reason. God looked down upon the human race and saw that the, the iniquity of man was great and that every thought of the intent of his heart was only evil continually. I'll give you my opinion on that. No human being, even with a fallen, sinful, depraved nature can be that bad, that consistently without demonic help. I think the whole pre-flood world was not only depraved but demonized. That every thought of the intent of their heart was always evil. Always. And so God, of course, I mean, my problem with the Genesis flood is not that God wiped out the human race, but that he waited hundreds of years for people to repent through the preaching of Noah, because God is long-suffering, not what? Willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. And Noah preached, and proclaimed, and warned, and appealed, pled with people, come into the ark, there's a flood coming, and people laughed and laughed, and Jesus said, in those days men were eating, and drinking, and marrying, and giving in marriage, all of which is fine, except that's all they lived for, just feeding and multiplying, and animals can do that too, and God did not do what? He didn't create human beings in his image and likeness to do nothing more than animals do. They had no thought for him, no response to his word, no interest whatever, And therefore, it said they understood not until Noah entered the ark and the flood came and destroyed them all. Encounter God's Truth is a weekly radio and internet outreach of Whitcomb Ministries. To hear any part of this series and biblical apologetics again, just go to sermonaudio.com slash Whitcomb. You can also get there quickly from our website, whitcombministries.org. We're sharing this material on Encounter God's Truth to help you grow stronger as a witness for the Lord Jesus Christ. We hope that you find it to be edifying as you seek to share your faith. We're just starting the second half of this series, so as we continue this theme in the coming weeks, we'd love to get your feedback regarding this teaching on apologetics when you visit us at facebook.com slash Whitcomb Ministries. I'm Wayne Shepherd, leaving you today with these words from Psalm 30. I will extol you, O Lord, for you have drawn me up and have not let my foes rejoice over me. O Lord, my God, I cried to you for help and you have healed me. O Lord, you have brought up my soul from Sheol. You restore me to life from among those who go down to the pit. Sing praises to the Lord, O you his saints, and give thanks to his holy name.