Ephesians chapter 1, Paul is writing to this church full of believers who had been called out of darkness and into light. The church full of people that had at one time been alienated from God but have been, by God's design and God's provision, have been given the opportunity and the reality of belonging to him. for eternity and Paul is describing that as he begins this letter to the church in Ephesus. I want to read about forgiveness, the satisfaction of God's wrath towards sin, and all of it is intended to put the focus of the reader, the focus of the believer, not on themselves but on the Savior that has made this provision for them. caused their praise to explode toward this God that has brought them to Himself and secured them for His own for eternity. He begins in verse 1, Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus, by the will of God, to the saints who are at Ephesus and who are faithful in Christ Jesus, grace to you, and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in heavenly places in Christ, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him. in love by predestining us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, which He graciously bestowed on us in the Beloved. In Him we have redemption through His blood. the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace, which He caused to abound to us, in all wisdom and insight, making known to us the mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure, which He purposed in Him, for an administration of the fullness of the times, that is, the summing up of all things in Christ. things in the heavens and things on the earth in Him. In Him we also have been made an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of Him, who works all things according to the counsel of His will, to the end that we who first have hoped in Christ would be to the praise of His glory. In Him you also, after listening to the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, having also believed, you are sealed in Him with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is given as a pledge of our inheritance unto the redemption of God's own possession, to the praise of His glory. For this reason, I too, having heard of the faith of the Lord Jesus which exists among you, and your love for all the saints, do not cease giving thanks for you, while making mention of you in my prayers, that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you the spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the full knowledge of Him. so that you, the eyes of your heart having been enlightened, will know what is the hope of his calling, what are the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints, and what is the surpassing greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the working of the might of his own strength, which He worked in Christ by raising Him from the dead and seating Him at His right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come. And he put all things in subjection under his feet, and gave him as head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all." Friends, we serve a great God. And if you need proof of that, you were not just listening. Because all of these things that Paul is expressing in this ecstatic manner were things that were given to people who can never deserve it. If you are in Christ today, you are in Christ in spite of who you are, not because of who you are. Father, thank you for this Lord's Day to be able to meet here. Come together for the singing of your praise and the preaching of your word, the reading and opening up of your scripture in this place. We pray that you will take it and affect every heart as you choose, that you will find fertile and pliable, malleable hearts of flesh to apply your word to this day. We pray that when we leave here, you will be honored and that your people will be blessed. We pray it in the name of this Savior that you have raised from the dead this Savior who now works in the lives of his people with this same power to accomplish what the world cannot understand. That you are molding and shaping the heart and the life of every believer, every one of your children that have received the forgiveness of sins, that have found in in the death of Christ, the satisfying sacrifice that you will accept on their behalf. We pray that you will have your way in those hearts this day. And that those that have not opened their heart to this Savior, that today would be the day that you establish them in your kingdom. Be honored by our time here, Father. This is our prayer, not because we deserve to have an audience with you. This is our prayer because you have opened the throne room of glory to us, because another has passed through the veil on our behalf. It is the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ alone, who has provided for us entrance, not only into your kingdom, but into your very presence at every moment. It is for His glory that we have met here this day, and it is in His name, in His name alone that we pray. Amen. I know what some of you may be expecting to hear from me next. Turn and meet me in John's Gospel in Chapter 8. You can turn there, but that's not where we're going. I don't do this often. going to make a departure from the norm here. I do this infrequently. I only do this for something that is crucial or important. Only when I'm convinced that this is necessary, that it will be profitable for you because We practice sequential exposition in the pulpit here for a few reasons. One of the reasons is God didn't write this book as a distracted group of individual thoughts haphazardly thrown together. God had this book written from verse 1 in chapter 1 to the end of the letter, from verse 1 chapter 1 to the end of the historical record, from verse 1 chapter 1 to the end of the prophecy in in in the writings of the prophets from verse 1 chapter 1 to the last verse in the Gospels it has been given to us in a book as a whole with a context and it is best preached that way and that is one of the reasons why we do it and to stray away from that takes take something special and extraordinary. This is why for Mother's Day or Father's Day we will take time away for a Thanksgiving message or an Easter message and very often for Christmas. Last week we took a step away from our exposition of John's Gospel to look at the life of John Calvin, one of the chief instruments of the Lord during the time of the Reformation. It was Reformation Sunday last week. It was the last Sunday of October. So we looked at John Calvin. We looked at his life. We looked at the labels that have been attached to him and we looked at his legacy. I decided as I was studying for that and really came to the full conviction of that by the time I got here Sunday and talked to a few people But the label that has been given to John Calvin's name is not exactly what it has been portrayed to be in church history since then. The church knows of the label of John Calvin's life as Calvinism. I told you that I was once asked in the foyer of this church, what we as the Appaloosa Bible Church, what do you think about Calvinism? I said, well, I think that if John Calvin knew that the doctrines of grace, the doctrines of sovereign grace in the scripture had his name attached to it, he would roll over in his grave. So I decided that this label of Calvinism that comes to us in an acronym is something that we're going to unpack in the next few weeks. How long? I don't know. Two years ago, I came into the pulpit for a sermon on the five souls of the Reformation. It turned into eight weeks. I came into the pulpit with a sermon. I don't know if I said that rightly or not, but I'm not under that illusion this year. But if we're going to serve this God in this life, we need to know this God, and we need to know His Word, and we need to know why we believe what we believe. The term Calvinism came out of a church investigation, a church meeting. It was a church synod. It was the Synod of Dort in 1618 and 1619. John Calvin died in 1564. So this Synod of Dort came about almost 60 years posthumously concerning John Calvin. And the Synod of Dort in this town of Dort in the Netherlands was across the border into the Netherlands from Belgium where just a dozen or so years prior, the Belgic Confession had been written. And there was some national pride involved and when ecclesiastical authority and government authority are intertwined, things get messy really quick. One of the things that the Puritan pilgrims came to this continent to try to find was some freedom to worship outside of the government mandate. But that had been the norm in Europe for a very long time. And it was a habit that was hard to break. And because they didn't just want to go along with the neighboring country, the church in the Netherlands was trying to find their own way. In 1618, the Senate of Dort met to determine and to codify the official theological stance of the church in the Netherlands. They wanted to come up with an official document that declared what is the national theological position. And that sounds very odd to you and I as Americans, and it should sound odd. But that's what was going on. This Senate of Dort when it concluded, produced what are known as the Canons of Dort, the findings and the official dogmas of the church. And in these Canons of Dort, the church in the Netherlands adopted John Calvin's views or John Calvin's teaching as to the scripture's position on the issues of the day. This meeting was called because of a group of people known as the Remonstrants, with a T. They produced what is known as the Remonstrants in 1609. called the Remonstrants because they disagreed and they brought their disagreements, the Remonstrants, to the church leaders and were beginning to push these ideas in the churches in the Netherlands. And the church gathered several dozen theologians and pastors from the country and met to have this synod. The Remonstrants were disciples or followers of a man named Jacobus Arminius. Jacobus Arminius died in 1608. In 1609, the remonstrance was penned, it was codified and begun to be pushed in the churches. And ten years later, in 1618, was the Senate of Dort called in order to deal with this upheaval in the church and this disagreement. Where we get Arminianism from is from the followers of Jacobus Arminius. the Arminians and they came with several points of doctrinal position that was presented to the church that was that was not the norm it was new Jacobus Arminius was a troublemaker in the church he was a self-willed man that had his own ideas and his own way of thinking and and came in and was bringing people along his way of thinking and and he he put his own slant on things and and he concocted a a new logical framework through which to view life and study philosophy and theology. It was not Aristotelian. It was another form of thought and direction of thought, and it was leading him away from the truth. But it also made him very persuasive, and it was leading others away from the truth. And it became such an issue that the church decided to meet. But this new logical framework that Arminius had concocted was rejected by most of the prominent schools, most of the prominent teachers and theologians rejected it, most of them. He spent time studying under Theodore Beza, who was John Calvin's successor. He had been around the Calvinistic school of theology and Bible study in Geneva. But he was able to find a niche in the, my term, Wild West of the Reformation era. once the shackles of religion were thrown off it it freed people up to have their own discussions and there was some good that came out of it and some bad and and and it's sometimes it was they were getting co-mingled in ending creating havoc in the church in it was starting to happen that way in the netherlands and they decided they were going to write and codify an official position of the if they do the belgian confession was good for belgium the heidelberg confession in the Heidelberg catechisms would do for the Dutch Reformed brethren. So the Synod of Dort was called and the Remonstrants brought the teachings of Arminius before the Synod in order to be refuted by the disciples and theologians of the legacy of John Calvin. So you had those from There were the followers and those that had been under the teaching of Calvin in Geneva, and you had these that had been under Arminius, the teaching of Arminius, and there's some diametric opposition in the perspectives that they had. Jacobus Arminius did not see man as bad as man is. Jacobus Arminius taught that man had good in him, and it was that good that you appealed to. But John Calvin found in the study of the Bible that that was not the case. Jacobus Arminius taught that you could fight the Holy Spirit to the extent that he would leave you alone and you would have the ability to push the grace of God out of your life. Jacobus Arminius taught that you were saved but you had to stay saved. that with the same ability that you exercised to put your faith and trust in Christ, you could take that same ability and put Christ aside and just walk out of the kingdom. There was no preservation of the saints. There was no permanence to it. And out of this Senate of Dort, where the Calvinistic school and the Arminian school met, out of this came what we call now the five points of Calvinism. That's dirty language to some churches today. You just don't talk about that. Anything with Calvin's name on it, except for the comic strip, anything with Calvin's name on it is to be rejected wholeheartedly. You don't need to hear another word of it. And I'm gonna read you some quotes from some folks in a moment to prove that point to you. The Five Points of Calvinism, if you want to call them that, I'll give you some other names that we will actually use as we go through this. John Calvin was not even in earthly existence when this was developed, but they were put into an acronym so that they're easy to remember. This isn't necessarily the order in which they came out of the Synod of Dort, but this is the order that we know them in today because it was put into the acronym of TULIP, TULIP being the state flower of the Netherlands, T-U-L-I-P, Total Depravity, Unconditional Election, Limited Atonement, Irresistible Grace, and the Preservational Perseverance of the Saints, T-U-L-I-P. And it's easy to remember and we thank the Lord for easy to remember. Amen. We like to be able to remember stuff easily. What these were, were the five refutations of the five main points of Arminianism. So the Arminians came with their points. Here, we're giving these to you. You come up with your rebuttal. We will hear both sides and we will come to our conclusion. And they got it right. I'll just tell you that ahead of time. These five points, if you will, this, what has now been commonly referred to as the doctrines of grace, the teachings on the grace of God, what exactly is the exercise of and the extent, the capacity of the grace of God? That is the one thing that you need more than anything else in this world is grace. You need the unmerited, unearned favor of God in your life every moment because you have never earned one moment of good from God. You can't. None of us can. I could have kept reading in Ephesians this morning when we got to the end of chapter 1 and the next thing out of Paul's pen was, you were dead in transgression and sin. That's where you were. What can a dead man do? You leave him in the water long enough, he'll float. But other than that, it's been referred to as sovereign grace. We understand that if it's God's grace that we need and it belongs to Him, He is the one who has the final say on what He does with His grace. He is not one that can be cajoled. He is not one that can be bullied or manhandled. His grace is his to use and dispense as he sees fit. He is sovereign over even his grace. To put it in single words, some of the battles that have erupted in the church, that really the only battles that were had of any consequence over this, really began in the 20th century. These tenets of grace these tenants of sovereign grace the tenants of election and predestination words that are all over the scripture these were the core tenants of the church until about beginning of the twentieth century what we see today is that there are many good and bad solid and shaky teachers and preachers that still disagree about these ideas. Still a lot of disagreement about them. As we go through this study, we are going to try to put those to bed and let the Bible say what it says. I tell people from time to time that try to answer questions that are asked to me and answer them before I can answer them. I'll tell people, I don't need you to put words in my mouth. I'm a big boy, I can answer my own questions. And friends, if that is remotely true of me, it is infinitely more true of the creator. He does not need me to help him say what he wants to say. He said it once for all, and it has been once for all delivered to the saints. these people that are all out looking for another word from god means that you are not satisfied with what god has already said or you think there's something deficient in what god has already said and i don't think that there's any safety in saying that in any serious manner in any context god can say one time for all time what he means on a subject the fact that you and i would struggle with it in these will be brains that we have has no bearing on the the truthfulness or validity of what the scripture says When the scripture says it, if you don't understand it, that's your problem, not his problem. Americans don't really want to hear that. I don't like to hear that either. But it's a reality. Culturally, we're going to celebrate Christmas here in just a few, couple of months. What are we supposedly celebrating in the culture for Christmas? We're celebrating the birth of the God-man. So, was Jesus God or was he man? Yes. Who said that? Right answer. Give her a gold star. Was he God or was he man? Yep. Yeah, but you can't be 200% of anything. He wasn't 200% of anything. He was fully God, fully man, truly God, truly man. He was the God man. But that doesn't make sense. I don't care. Was Jesus born of a virgin? Explain me that, please. Can't. It was a miracle. The Holy Spirit of God moved on her and she was with child. I don't know how that works. I don't need to know how it works. I'm just glad he did it because that's what we needed. There were a lot of people that went to a cross that did nothing but die. But that one went to the cross. And friends, that death became the satisfaction for God's wrath and provided for us forgiveness for our trespasses. We needed that one to not be a normal man. I've got another question for you. Who wrote Romans? I see some of you wanted to say Paul and you backed up. Is it Paul or was it the Holy Spirit? We begin to look at it and say, well, you know, it was Paul and the Holy Spirit and they each had a pen. now that kind of works in a church i love uh... a preacher friend that the group of pastors are preaching through the same book and they're taking turns. And I've asked him about some of the difficulties that come with that because it's pretty easy for me to just pinch this off and bring the next link of sausage next week and nobody ever knows. But if I've got to finish so that Andre can preach next week and chat after that and we've got these assigned portions, that makes it kind of difficult. But you can pull that off and it does work. But how in the world do you write scripture? How did Paul write it and the Holy Spirit write it? Well, the Holy Spirit wrote it through Paul, yes, but it came out of Paul's vocabulary, it came out of Paul's experience, it came out of Paul's intellect, but it's the very word of God in the original manuscript. How do we explain that? I don't know how to explain it. But if it's not true, we can go find something else to do on Sunday because all we have is an old book written by men. So we need to put aside the idea that just because this is hard to understand, then it can't be true. I've told you some good and bad, solid and shaky. Teachers disagree on this. Let me give you a few of them. Tim LaHaye, many of you will be familiar with who he is. He says, to suggest that the merciful, long-suffering, gracious, and loving God of the Bible would invent a dreadful doctrine like this, predestination, which would have us believe it is an act of grace to select certain people from heaven by excluding others for hell, comes perilously close to blasphemy. Problem is the Bible says that. I am going to refrain from trying to give you an explanation on what the Lord says. I'm just going to let him say it because that's the safe thing to do. Arno Friis said the flawed theology of preselection, that's what he calls sovereign grace, is an attempt to eliminate man's capacity to exercise his free will, which reduces God's sovereign love to an act of mere dictatorship. Is God a dictator? Depends on how you define it. We talk about a benevolent dictator, that doesn't exist on this planet, but it exists in heaven. Another one writes, this doctrine makes our Heavenly Father look like the worst of despots. Have you ever prayed for the Lord to change somebody's heart? You ever done that? your as a lawyer to intervene to change change their disposition toward this change that we would you would you call them to change their perspective somebody at work something in a in a in a in a a court of law the ever prayed for a politician that the lord get their mind right before they vote if you ever done that raise your hand if you've done that someone said god holds the heart of the king in his hand he turns it like rivers of water wherever he chooses How do you explain that? I don't know. I want him to leave, get out of the equation and let me make my choice, but when it's someone else making a choice that affects me, I want you to affect that. Make sure it doesn't affect me in an ill way. But you can definitely change what they're thinking, just don't tell me I have to. Friends, we get on shaky ground when we do that. Another president of a university said, this doctrine is the most unreasonable, incongruous, self-contradictory, man-belittling, and God-dishonoring scheme of theology that ever appears in Christian thought. No one can accept its contradictory, mutually exclusive propositions without intellectual self-debasement. It holds up self-centered, selfless, heartless, remorseless tyrant for God and bids us to worship him. A Calvary Chapel pastor says, five-point Calvinism, which would include election, predestination. He says, it makes God a monster who eternally tortures innocent children. It removes the hope of the consolation from the gospel and limits the atoning work of Christ. It resists evangelism. It stirs up argumentation and division and promotes a small, angry, judgmental God rather than the large-hearted God of the Bible. Another one says, to say that God sovereignly chooses who he will save is the most twisted thing I've ever read that makes God a monster no better than a pagan idol. Another Calvary Chapel guy says that it's blasphemy. And he says, I've listened to the sermon, he says it with More vehemence than and more more authority than anything else. He says he's pretty milquetoast other than that, but he said it's blasphemy And if it's true, then you can take john 3 16 out of your bible Charles Spurgeon you heard of him? Gotta look good at brother collin. He may be wearing a shirt that's got spurgeon on it this morning Charles Spurgeon was the best Baptist preacher that ever existed, as far as preaching goes. He's known as the Prince of Preachers, and for good reason. Charles Spurgeon said, I am not a Calvinist because Calvin taught it. I am a Calvinist because I find it taught on virtually every page of the Bible. He went on to say that The doctrines of grace, Calvinism, the sovereign grace of God, is the most pride-crushing doctrine in the whole of Scripture. You can say amen to that, because that's why we don't like it. But on the other side of that coin, Spurgeon said it is, at the same time, the most Christ-honoring doctrine in all the Scripture. Because, my friends, God owes you nothing good in this life or the next, and he never will. You what you have earned what you can earn you have already earned and that is separation from God And I'm gonna paint the picture more clearly in a moment We're gonna look at the idea begin to look at the idea of total depravity today And I'm gonna tell you at the outset. It's worse than you think Because I can tell you to look back at your life and try to remember a time when you didn't sin And you can't do that neither can I. But the problem is you didn't have any hope even before you had the opportunity to commit your first sin because of how you were born. In keeping with the tulip, we're going to use total depravity here. I'm going to probably not use that term very often. I'm going to use some other terms in its place, because they all give a well-rounded idea of what this statement actually means. I went back to the Webster's 1828 Dictionary, one of the first dictionaries that Webster put together, so we could go back and get get an older understanding of these words, because as the etymology of a word transpires, they begin to mean something different than they did before. The idea of total depravity, what does depravity mean? Well, depravity means, in a word, corruption, Webster's puts it, or wickedness, or corruption of moral principles. or destitution of holiness or good principles. To be destitute of anything holy or good is what Webster defines depravity as, and this core tenet of church teaching since the Reformation has been the reality of man's existence being that of total depravity. Totally destitute of holiness or good principles. The late R.C. Sproul liked to put it in these terms. He said, I don't want to use total depravity because in the idea it means that you are as depraved and as destitute of holiness and good principles, you are as morally destitute and corrupt as you can possibly be. That's the idea that's conveyed by that statement. And we can look around in the world, we can look around this room and know that that's not true. There's not a Hitler in this room. There's not a Saddam Hussein in this room. There's not a Joseph Stalin in this room. Those men are at the nadir of depravity. And all of us exist somewhere higher than that. So I'm not as bad as I could be because I'm not as, I'm not as externally bad as they are and were. And that's true. But the idea that's being conveyed in Dr. Sproul's mind was the idea of radical corruption. And you say radical, you mean like the surfers? No, no. Radical comes from the Latin word radix, which means root. And the idea of radical corruption is that you are corrupt to the core of who you are, and that is how you were born. Now, you say, preacher, we came here to be encouraged today. You're not being very encouraging. You're going to be, because I'm telling you what this God that we just were encouraged to praise him, just praise him. That God took the description that I'm about to give you and said, you know what? I'm going to send a savior for them, in spite of who they are. I'm going to save them and make them mine. I will adopt them into my family. It is a pride-crushing doctrine, and we don't want to hear it. It's not comfortable. Liz and I, when we were preparing to be married, we were looking to buy an engagement ring, just a few years ago. We went to jewelry stores, you know, we went to one guy's house. Remember going to that guy's house? And he was a jewelry dealer. And I don't know what you expect to find in the jewelry dealer's house. But he said, come in, I'll show you what I have, we can make you a ring. Living in a house off Three Mile Lake down here. So we go in the guy's house and he just, just a house, I mean it wasn't, Wasn't overly special, wasn't a dump, just a house, you know, like normal people live in. And he had envelopes just filed in this little box. He pulls out an envelope, it's full of diamonds. Pours them out on the table, I'm looking at them, that's pretty cool. I saw some of them in the gumball machine at Walmart, you know, looked like that. I mean, look, diamonds are a girl's best friend. Kubrick's zirconia is her second best friend. And can be her first best friend unless you tell her that it's not a diamond. Or so I've heard. That's not my experience. Don't go ask my wife what you're thinking. We go to this guy's house, and he pours out, and I said, yeah, they're pretty, you know. But then he pulls out a black velvet cloth, and he lays it on the table. And he put those diamonds on that black cloth. My friends, on that pitch black backdrop, those diamonds began to explode. Every bit of light that came from that chandelier went in those diamonds and came out in a thousand different directions. What I'm describing to you right now about the depravity of man, the radical corruption of man, that is the black backdrop on which we are going to lay the gospel and see the glory of the Savior. because of what he has done in spite of who we are. And I'll tell you this, we like to focus on the good news, the gospel, God's spell, it was the good news, it's the euangelion, it's the good word from God. Friends, the gospel is no news to you until you know the bad news about you. You don't care about a savior, you don't want a savior until you know how much you need a savior. That is true for every mother's child. Dr. Sproul describes it as radical corruption. MacArthur would refer to it as absolute inability. It's portraying man in his absolute incapacitated state of corruption that is corrupt to the core. To say total depravity does not mean that we are as bad as we can be. What it means is that the totality of personhood is corrupt to the core. How many of you like to hear that? Good answer. You're in good company. I don't either. The totality of personhood, our thoughts, Words, deeds, our desires, corrupt to the core. Bible uses a single word to describe those things. The thoughts and words and deeds are the desires that we have. Bible uses the word heart. Prophet Jeremiah ends the argument Chapter 17 of his prophecy, speaking for God, he says, the heart is more deceitful than all else and is desperately sick. Who can know it? I, the Lord, search the heart. I test the inmost being, even to give to each man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his deeds. Friends, that is a terrifying verse. Because if the Lord gives you according to the fruit of your deeds, and your deeds are coming out of a radically corrupt heart that is deceitful more than everything else. Church, I tell you all the time that the most deceivable person in your life is the one that watches you brush your teeth in the mirror. Because your heart will fool you before anyone else, and it will fool you before you ever know it. And what this says, the overarching reality of this is that there is a universal guilt on every human being that must be dealt with by God. And it will be dealt with by God. It will either be dealt with for eternity, after the final judgment, or it will be dealt with according to the cross of Christ and the penalty that he has already paid. But it will be dealt with. No sin goes unpunished. Either the punishment of the cross is sufficient to pay for your sin, or you will be in eternity as a continuing sinner in the very presence of the wrath of God. Now, if we're going to look at the corruption of man, if we're going to look at the depravity of man, if we're going to look at the absolute inability of man, the real understanding of what man is like and what man's great problem truly is, we need not look at the present. I heard Ken Ham on an interview with Justin Peterson recently make this statement. He said, and he's speaking of this supposed battle between evolution and creationism. There's not a battle to be had. Evolution is mere rebellion. He said, the key to the past is not the present. The present is not the key to the past. The past is the key to the present. Because what the Bible tells us about the past explains to us what we have in the present. We don't look at the present and try to determine what has happened in the past. And the same is true about the future. The present isn't the key to the future. Biblically speaking, the past is the key to the present and the future. Let us dive into this and look at the poisonous introduction of corruption. We need to know where this came from. How did it get here? How did we come to this point? How are we here in November of 2025 talking about the total depravity of man? Well, have you watched the news lately? What's wrong with Washington today? Total depravity. what's wrong with hollywood today told the property what's wrong on the street corners in the middle of the night in opelousa's told the property why is there a ubiquitous presence on social media of parents begging people to help them find their children who have been hauled off into slavery of some sort by some nefarious person on on uh... On a social media site. Why is that? Why is that a ubiquitous presence in our culture today? Total depravity? Why is there pornography everywhere we look? Unfortunately, we have become far desensitized to it in comparison to what even a generation ago thought. Just watch the way people dress. It's easy. Now, there's just not a lot of concern about that in this day. Why? Because of the radical corruption of the heart of man. It's not new, and it's not something that is getting less prominent. It's becoming more prominent. But it had to begin somewhere. How did we get where we are? I'm glad you asked. If you want to open your Bible, you can open it right now to the first book of your Bible. It's easy to find. It's right past the table of contents. Easy to find. The book of Genesis. And you don't have to turn real far in Genesis. Turn to chapter two. For most of you, it's probably on the first page after the table of contents is pretty easy to find chapter 2 we are just beginning to learn from the creator what he did in creation how we got here what what were the first things that happened we're going to look at the poisonous introduction of corruption then we'll look at a later date at the perpetuated infection of corruption and then we'll look at the present implication present implication in our life the present implication of of this corruption But beginning in Genesis chapter 2, you know Genesis begins before the beginning, tells us of the beginning that began the beginning that begat everything that is. But John tells us in John chapter 1 that in the beginning that begat the beginning that was a beginning, even before that beginning, the Word was with God. Well, the Word The eternal Son of God and the eternal person of God the Father and the eternal person of the Holy Spirit are there in eternity. And then God starts to speak. Let there be light. Then He spoke and separated the waters and brought dry land and then began to create the animals and the planets The sun and the moon and the stars, as he puts it. And he builds all of this and he looks and he says, behold, it is very good. And he said, let us make man in our own image. We've created all of this. I've spoken all of this into existence. Created the animals in the image of mammal, whatever they are, tiger, an elephant, a rhinoceros. I like to think that Adam rode a tiger around everywhere. He didn't need to call Uber. One of those things they ride around, a Segway, didn't need a Segway. He had a Bengal tiger he rode everywhere. Or maybe a rhinoceros, that would have been pretty good too. After he's created all of this, all of the animals, all the birds, all the fish, everything after their own kind, he says, I will make man in my own image. A special creation, different than the rest. He speaks the rest into existence, but he takes dirt. He creates a man and he personally breathes the breath of life and separates man from the rest of his creation. Your animals have bios, they do not have zoe. You have a soul, your dog does not. I don't have to convince you that a cat has no soul, nobody believes that. But he's created this man and he puts him in this garden, this perfect place. I don't know what the perfect vacation is for you. Some of you like the mountains. Some of you like the beach. Some of you would like to take the beach to the mountains. Or bring the mountains to the beach. I don't know how that would work. Some of you want to be in the hills where it's covered in trees and heavily wooded areas. And some of you want to be in the places where it's just snow as far as you can see. Some of you want to be on an island somewhere or riding on a big boat to said island. I don't know what the perfect place is for you. But it's different for each one of us because we all have an opinion about what is great. But friends, God made a place that was perfect for man. He put man in it. He gave him all that he needed. You know, we go out and grow crops. It's coming to the end of harvest season here. All the bean crops have been harvested and rice is in second crop. Those that are cutting second crop of rice, all of the other grains have been harvested. They're in the middle of harvesting sugarcane. But those men have to plant that year by year. Have to replant and redo it. And then they have to go out and work and make make produce and make a living and make sustenance. Adam was in the Garden of Eden and all he had to do was go and grab it. I cannot imagine. What we see today is what's left over after the flood of Noah. We're going to talk about Noah too when we get there. You need to understand why there was a flood. We see the evidence of that flood everywhere. Some of you have been to the Grand Canyon. I love to hear an evolutionist try to explain to me why there are so many layers of rock in the Grand Canyon. So that happened over millions of years. Those fossils in there say something different. Those fossils in there tell me that the biblical record is what happened. And what we have left to look at is what's left. You know, we talk about who's the most disappointed person in the Bible. It probably was Lazarus. He's in the presence of the father and he says, Hey, I need you to go back. Okay. That is probably not even accurate. But I can tell you what is accurate. That it was a mixed blessing for Noah when he stepped off of that ark because he'd been on that thing over a year. And when he stepped off, what he found was not what he left. And what we see today is the leftovers from that. What caused God to do that? We're gonna look at that. But that's not where it begins. It begins here. Genesis chapter 2 with a man living in paradise. Well, I don't know what paradise is to you. This is God's defined This is God defining paradise And he allows Adam to realize that he's all alone that Everybody's got a boy and a girl boy and a girl tiger boy and a girl lion boy and a girl rhinoceros boy and a girl elephant And everybody's got somebody Is that me? Then he made a help meat suitable for him and he brings Eve to him and that was the most exciting day of Adam's life. This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. Oh, it's one like me, it's one for me. God turns him loose in the garden. But he gives him a warning. There's a warning issued in chapter two in verse 17. Start in verse 15, get a little context. Then the Lord God took the man and set him in the garden of Eden to cultivate it and keep it. And God commanded the man saying, not suggested, not, hey, I got a little bit of advice for you. God commanded the man saying, From any tree of the garden you may surely eat, but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat from it. For in the day that you eat from it, you will surely die. This is a warning. Clear cut warning. Up until now, it's good, it's good. Behold, it's very good. Adam's right, now this is great. Now it is beyond great. Now I've got a wife. He said, boy, everything that's here is yours. Enjoy. Don't touch that one. Don't eat that one. In the day, in the moment, in that moment, everything will change. In the day that you eat of it, if you eat from it. I wonder how many times Adam held it in his hand and thought about it before he ate it. What we have here is the day that they ate, You have to wonder. Maybe Eden was looking at it one day. Well, I'm not going to eat it. I just want to look at it. And Adam told her, hey, you don't eat it or you don't touch it. But that's what she's going to tell the serpent. At the moment that you eat of this, everything will change. This is a gracious warning from God. He's telling him you want to avoid it at all costs. Stay away from it. Don't go there. We as parents kind of understand that because we tell our kids not to do something, they just, they are locked in, I have got to touch this. Boy, don't you touch that, I've got to. Son, if you touch that, you're gonna regret it, two ways, because it's gonna hurt you and I'm gonna whoop you. Trust me, don't touch it. Sometimes they have to go through it and figure it out, find out. It's rendered in English in just, every English translation that I can find is rendered this way. The day that you eat of it, you will surely die. In the original, it's the same word for death twice. In your dying, you will die. Now, you need to understand part of this, you and I are looking back at this. We're in the present looking at the past. You understand what death is. We see death everywhere. Grass is starting to die, the trees are starting to go dormant, leaves are falling off, animals die, people die, we go to funerals, we see death everywhere. These people have never heard of death. They didn't know what death was. Death, what are you talking about? Die? All I know is I don't want to die. They had that natural inclination, I'm sure. This was an unknown reality to them, death? What God is telling them is you don't want to know death. You want to stay away from death. And in the day that you eat of it, death will become inescapable. Like it is for you and I. But it's more than physical death. Because in the day that he did eat of it, he didn't physically die on the spot. And you will surely die. You will be burned to a cinder in an instant. But that's not what happened. And I don't think God changed his mind. I think what God meant had more implication than Adam could possibly have understood until after the fact. Death will be inescapable. The immediate reaction that we see is when they both eat of it, they realize that they were naked and they made fig leaves for themselves. You remember? In verse seven, the eyes of both of them were open. They knew they were naked and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves long covering. There was an instant death of relationship. And it was a death of relationship between man and man and between man and God. Had no idea that was coming. Oh, this is pleasant to look at, and it looks like it's going to taste good and it's going to make me wise. Lest of the eyes, lest of the flesh and the pride of life. I'll have some and you don't have some. there was immediately the death of innocence there were no longer innocent they they've adam and eve did not exist in a state of holiness the lord jesus christ existed in the state of holiness they existed in a state of innocence but this is was lost and could never get it back it was gone i want my children about that all the time what what's what you cross certain lines you cannot come back from what is lost it is gone and now you live with the regret and the agonies of crossing that line you cannot get back to me Adam and Eve experienced that to a degree infinitely higher than we can in this life because they went from innocence to true innocence to true guilt. It was death of spirit. His spirit died that day and it led to death of the body because his body would be put in the grave 900 years later. But I'll tell you what Adam did not know and what is profitable for you and I to know in this day and age as we're looking at this through the prism of the present, looking at the past. In Romans chapter eight, I'm going to come back to Genesis. If you're going to turn to Romans eight, you can, but I'm just going to read this and we're going to go back to Genesis. Romans chapter eight, Paul is, he has on his mind Adam and the fall of man there in Genesis chapter two. Romans 8 and verse 20, Paul says, for the creation, the whole of creation, all that God spoke into existence, the creation, for the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it in hope that the creation itself also will be set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now. When Adam sinned, he suffered, Eve suffered, the entire creation suffered. That sin, in that day that he would eat of it, he plunged the whole creation into ruin and decay. We tend to look at the commands of God and the demands of God, the expectations of God, we tend to look at those as being something of a hindrance. Oh, God is just trying to rain on my parade. Friends, anytime God ever told man what to do or what not to do, to cross that line brought man more agony than he ever could have imagined. And it was a gracious warning from God to tell him not to do it. You don't want to do it. You don't want to go there. You don't want to cross that line. This warning to Adam that in the day that you eat of it, you will die. That was the warning issued. Next chapter in chapter 3 in Genesis, we see the warning ignored. Chapter 3 in verse 4. The evil one comes in the form of a serpent and speaks to the woman. We won't go there today, but it's interesting to me that she kept talking to this snake. It was different in the Garden of Eden, unlike today. When they got off the ark, that's when God put enmity between man and animals. Up until that point, they had a much different relationship than we have today. He comes to the woman and he asks, has God said, you shall not eat from any tree of the garden? No, God didn't say that. It should have been the answer, but that's not the answer. She said, from the fruit of the trees of the garden we may eat, but from the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God said, you shall not eat of it, and you shall not touch it, lest you die. Don't eat it, don't touch it, lest you die. Adam said, look, don't even go by it. Quit looking at it, or you're going to die. That's not exactly what he said either, is it? You will surely die. In your dying, you will die. Then the devil speaks, verse four. And the serpent said to the woman, you surely will not die. It did not take long for man to ignore the warning that was issued. All it took was the right word at the right time. And I've asked you before church was, was the devil lying when he said that, but you will not surely die. You surely will not die. Don't eat it. Don't touch it. You're going to die. And he says, you're not going to die. Was he right or wrong? Was he right or wrong? It was both. And he was right, because they did not die immediately burned to a pile of ashes. So I ask you, did God lie? Because he just read it in English, you shall surely die. And the devil says, you won't die. And they didn't die. Man's interpretation saw it as immediate. What did happen, what did happen proved to be an immediate, eternal, and inescapable reality, humanly speaking. They began to die. There was a spiritual death that happened. And the devil says, you will not surely die immediately. Look at me. The devil had already rebelled and been thrown out of heaven by this time. And he's there saying, I'm still here. He didn't kill me. The devil understands that in the gracious providence of God and in his patience that he has a day that he has set that he will deal with these things. And that day is going to come. But between now and then you won't be dead. You may wish you were. diabolical lie from the father of lies himself and he hasn't stopped yet he tells her in in verse 5 God's holding you back look what he says God knows it in the day that you eat of it your eyes will be opened and you will be like God oh that's what you want you want to be like God you want to be like Bruce Almighty Evan Almighty I've not seen the movies. I have some idea of the blasphemy that's involved, that this guy has the power that belongs only to God and goes around comically misusing it. That's been the devil's desire from the beginning. He's holding you back. He knows you'll be like him. You'll be like him how? Knowing good and evil. Are there some things you wish you didn't know? Are there some things you wish you could go back and unknow and start over and never cross that line and know that? If there are, it is infinitely more true of Adam and Eve. He says, you will know good and evil. And what that meant was they were going to lose innocence. Innocence is lost and corruption is gained. In verse seven, their eyes were open. Evil was now known to them. There was no turning back. The cover-up begins, first with the fig leaves, then when the presence of God shows up, he starts making excuses. Yeah, I did it, but she, you brought her to me, and then she did it. Y'all discuss it. That's what Adam did. He said, oh, don't look at me as a snake. Verse 19, this warning ignored brings a high price. Verse 17, he says, because you've listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten the tree about which I commanded you, you shall not eat from it. What was the command? You shall not eat from it. Cursed is the ground because of you, in pain you will eat of it all the days of your life. Both thorns and thistles it shall grow for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your face you will eat bread, till you return to the ground, because from it you were taken, for you are dust, and to dust you shall return. Cursed is the ground, cursed are your days, and cursed is your labor. I told you not to eat it! Here we are. You're going to be without me. In this intimacy that we've enjoyed up until now, they recognize that the presence of God was in the garden because they had heard it before. Now they're running and hiding. Then he says, you're going to go back to the dust from which you were taken. Well, We see the warning illustrated in Genesis chapter 4. And I'll just give you this. We'll unpack it a little more the next time. This warning has been issued and ignored and we see the fruit of this warning coming out and being illustrated beginning in chapter 4 with Cain and Abel. He's just told the woman, well he's actually told the, he's made a promise to the evil one through the serpent, that he will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed. He shall bruise you on the head, and you shall bruise him on the head. And in chapter 4, verse 1, the man knew his wife Eve, and she conceived and gave birth to Cain. And she said, I have gotten a man with the help of Yahweh. I've had a son. God promised that one of my seed would crush this serpent and maybe he'll be the one to bring us back to Eden. I wonder how will they do? How will they do? This is a new crop. They're going to have, they're going to get to make their own choices, right? And she had, says she, verse two, gave birth to his brother Abel. Some think that this means that they were twins. It's possible. They weren't twins. They were very close together. And we see these two come along and say, maybe they'll pick up the slack. Maybe Cain will be that promised seed. Then response time came. They brought an offering to God. This doesn't, this verbage doesn't fit the idea of a sin offering. In any way, it's always used of the grain offering in Moses' later writings. But they bring an offering. They bring an offering of gratitude. It says that Cain brought some of the produce to the field. Cain brought an offering to Yahweh of the fruit of the ground. Abel brought the firstborn of his flock and of their fat portions. And God had regard for Abel in his offering, but for Cain in his offering, he had no regard. And Cain got mad. And you know what he did. God said, boy, sin is crouching at the door and desires to have you, but you must rule over it. And he said, oh, oh, you like a bloody lamb? I'll give you one. And he drew his, got his brother in the field and he slit his brother's throat and killed him. And we see the immediate illustration of the warning that God gave to Adam, that this will affect more than you. And we're going to continue to look at this and look at the perpetual infection of corruption as we come back to this. It didn't stop there. Cain is the first opportunity to change this. Can you imagine what Adam and Eve poured into Cain? You are the hope that we have. He promised that one of my seed would crush the head of the serpent. We need this to happen. You're the one. And it rolled off him like water on a dove. Why? Because his heart was corrupt to the core because he was born that way. I told you it's one thing to say what we have become looking back in our life because we can't think of a time when we didn't sin. I told you it's worse than that. It's the way that you were born. It's the way that your parents were born. It's one of the reasons that God has circumcision as a sign for Abraham because the best that man can do is to produce another man. And what does he produce? He produces another sinner just like himself. If you think you're not corrupt to the core, why can you not produce anything other than what you are? Because there's not a parent in this room that would willingly put their child in that position. But we do. They're born and they need a savior because they're our offspring, because we are all the offspring of Adam. This began, this corruption penetrated the heart of man in the very beginning and it has been passed down to everyone since then. That is why we come to Ephesians chapter 1 and Paul says that in Christ we have redemption through his blood. What is redemption? the forgiveness of our trespasses there is forgiveness for that in christ and we don't begin to recognize him as who he is until we recognize who we are and to see ourselves as anything other than radically corrupt without the savior is to be biggest fool in the room god has spelled this out for us so that we see Not merely how sinful we are but we would see how gracious And how loving and how merciful he is Heavenly father, I pray that you will You will cause our hearts to rejoice in the savior this day For those that are in christ that we will recognize who we have been who we were born and who it is that you are who it is that you are saving and bringing into your presence for eternity. And Lord, we long for that day when our spirits will be united with a body that is fit for heaven, and that we will no longer have this sin in us or around us. Until that day, I pray that we will be faithful witnesses of the Savior that saves corrupt sinners like we are, and that many will run to Him to receive what only He can provide. Bless your people for being here this day. Pray it in Jesus' name. Amen.