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Well, we'll bow together and
let us unite our hearts in prayer and look to the Lord for help
as we gather here in this house today. Our Heavenly Father, we
bow before Thee this Sabbath morning. We confess that we need
Thee as we enter into another day such as this, the Lord's
Day, a day in which we're privileged to spend our company together
around the things of God and come to worship Thee and give
attention to those matters that pertain to life and to godliness.
We bow before Thee in the precious name of our Lord Jesus Christ. We thank Thee for Thy dear and
well-beloved Son, Thank Thee today for all the merits and
all the value of His atonement. And on that ground, we approach
Thee. We pray, Lord, for help. We pray
for the power of God to rest on us as we gather here. We pray
for the help of the Holy Spirit in great measure and with great
blessing as we come together in this fashion. Lord, may our
hearts be renewed. May our souls be strengthened.
May we know the touch of God as we meet around the book. O
Lord, we confess that we cannot do anything without Thee. We
cannot read or study the Scripture left to ourselves. We cannot
rest on our own devices. We must have the illumination
of the author of this book. We need His power to fall upon
our souls. We need the Lord to enlighten
our minds. And so come this day and meet with us and bless us
together as we wait on Thee, we pray in Jesus' name and for
His eternal glory. Amen and amen. Our Bible reading
is in Romans chapter 3, so please turn with me to that chapter,
the book of Romans chapter 3. And I want to read from verse
9 down to verse number 18. I welcome every one of you to
our Bible class, and we're glad to see you. We welcome as well
our webcast audience. Wherever you may be at this moment,
a very hearty welcome to you. And so, we want to read the Word
of God in Romans 3, beginning at the verse number 9. And Paul
says, Are we, and he's referring there to the Jew, are we better
than they, the Gentile? No, in no wise, for we have before
proved, both Jews and Gentiles, that they are all under sin. As it is written, there is none
righteous, no not one. There is none that understandeth.
There is none that seeketh after God. They are all gone out of
the way. They are together become unprofitable.
There is none that doeth good, no, not one. Their throat is
an open sepulchre. With their tongues they have
used deceit. The poison of asps is under their lips. Whose mouth
is full of cursing and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed
blood. Destruction and misery are in their ways. And the way
of peace have they not known. There is no fear of God before
their eyes. Now we know that what things
whoever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law,
that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become
guilty before God. And the Lord will bless the reading
of His own infallible and precious Word. What we have in these verses
is a summary of the presentation that Paul makes here in the early
part of Romans in relation to the sinfulness of the world of
his own day. What we read here is really the
culmination of a whole discussion that Paul goes into from chapter
1 right on through with regard to the world of the first century,
first century humanity and all its decadence, all its darkness,
all of the wickedness into which man had developed by that point
in human history. And so with regard to the time
in which this passage is written, We find that as Paul addresses
the state of humanity, he is doing so at a point 4,000 years
after creation, and 4,000 years are a little around that time
after the fall of man. And so, we're at a stage, therefore,
in history when all those millennia have passed away. And the vital
lesson that we learn from what Paul writes here, and also in
earlier parts of Romans, is that human nature does not change
or get any better over the passage of time. Instead, human nature
becomes increasingly wicked. And so this passage of the Bible
shows and provides a vivid illustration of the particular line of study
that we have been focusing on over these past weeks, that is
the results of the fall of man into sin. And the consequences
of man's fall continue on, on abated. They develop, they grow,
they increase, and we find therefore that the view of man in Scripture
is that the human race is spiraling downwards. in degeneration and
an apostasy from God and becoming more deeply entrenched in its
own wickedness. And this is the view that Paul
gives us here in these verses. You will have noticed perhaps,
if you've got a marginal Bible, that many of the statements that
he makes here in verse by verse are all drawn from the Old Testament. And he quotes verse after verse
from maybe the Psalms or the book of Isaiah, and he sets them
forth as the proof of what he is saying, as the demonstration
of the wickedness of man as time goes by. Now man's sinful state
is summed up for us in our own Westminster Confession of Faith.
And in chapter 6, there are two sections, I just want to quote
from sections 3 and 4 of the Confession, chapter 6, and we
have these statements. They, that is Adam and Eve, being
the root of all mankind, the guilt of this sin, that is their
sin, was imputed, and the same death in sin and corruption and
corrupted nature conveyed to all their posterity, descending
from them by ordinary generation. From this original corruption,
whereby we are utterly indisposed, disabled, and made opposite to
all good and wholly inclined to all evil, do proceed." all
actual transgressions." Now, that's quite an amount to deal
with and digest, but those are very, very clear statements.
They're very biblical statements. They are drawn from and based
upon God's precious Word. It's not that these men who framed
the confession sat down and said, this would be a nice thing to
say or this will sound really theologically good. No, they
went to the Word of God and they drew their deductions on the
state of man and the corruption of man, the guilt of man from
what the Bible clearly teaches. And we should have an interest
in what our confessional forefathers actually taught and believed,
because it is the very basis of our own church's doctrine
and belief. And so, we have summed up for
us in those statements, man's sinful condition. And effectively,
the statements are underlining the consequences of the sin of
our first parents, with regard to their posterity. That includes
you and me. We are the posterity of Adam
and Eve, and therefore we should pay interest to what they are
doing in those statements, what they are setting forth. The effects
of Adam's transgression they are showing extend to the whole
of the human race, including both the imputation of guilt
to all men, that is the guilt of Adam's first sin, as well
as the conveying of a corrupt nature. And that is what is meant
by original sin, the transferring of Adam's guilt or the imputation
of Adam's guilt to his posterity and the conveying of a corrupt
nature. to the rest of humanity. Now,
last week we focused on the first of these issues, that is, this
matter of Adam's guilt being transferred to his posterity. And in looking at that, we dealt
with Adam to some degree in a fashion that shows two things about him.
He is, number one, the natural head of all men. That means He
is the first man, and the Bible makes that very clear. And from
Him all other men, all other people have descended, so He's
the natural head of the whole human race. And the second thing
is we saw that He is the federal head. of the whole human race. And don't be put off by the word
federal. It simply signifies one who is a representative. And therefore, in that legal
sense, Adam was the representative of all men when he was set in
the garden by God and he was placed under that covenant, the
covenant of works or the covenant of the law. And so in that legal
and representative since. When Adam sinned, when Adam fell,
he did not do so in isolation. He did so as the representative
of all those who would descend from him by ordinary generation. And so he's their natural head
in that he beget the whole human race, but he's their federal
head. in that he represented them. And the proof that he is
their federal head is that the guilt of that first sin is held
over every man. And furthermore, every man comes
under the sentence. of death, which is the result
of that first sin. And we go into some detail on
Romans 5 and verse number 12 to see these matters and also
other scriptures. And therefore, we find that all
men being in union with Adam, their federal head, in that legal
sense, they sinned with Adam, they fell with Adam in that first
sin. And that means that all men are
guilty of that first sin. Again, proved by the fact that
all men are under the penalty of death for that first sin,
as well as under the penalty of death for their own sins.
And so that matter belongs to original sin. That is, the guilt
of Adam's first transgression is guilt that belongs to you
and me, and to all of humanity. But we also know that Just in
passing, we come to it today, therefore, in more detail. This
other result of the fall, and that is this matter of the corruption
of man's nature, which also belongs to original sin. Because whenever
Adam sinned, and we sinned in Adam, therefore Adam fell, a
corrupt nature came over him, but it was also something of
which we were guilty, the corruption that was involved in that first
act of sin. And so we inherit a corrupt nature
because we were guilty of that first sin, and therefore the
corruption of that sin is transferred to us. Do you see the point?
If we weren't guilty with Adam in that first sin, then Put it
very simply, it would not have been fair for that corrupt nature
to be transferred to us. And the point that it is transferred
to us, or the proof is, that we are born with it. We are born
with it. We are born with a corrupt nature. Which means it is transmitted
down from Adam, right down through the generations of time. And
so, we go again to the confession, just back to those statements
and pick out a few words. And I want you to listen carefully
to what I want to read here. They, Adam and Eve, being the
root of all mankind, the same death and sin and corrupted nature
conveyed to all their posterity. descending from them, from Adam
and Eve, by ordinary generation. And so, from the first pair,
the first human pair, Adam and Eve, there is, by ordinary generation,
the transmission of a spiritually dead and corrupt nature to all
of their progeny, to all of mankind. And the Word of God attests to
that, witnesses concerning that very, very clearly. Psalm 51.5,
we'll look at some of these verses a little later. Or Psalm 58 verse
3, the wicked go astray as soon as they are born. We're all wicked,
and we all go astray as soon as we're born. As well as being
born in sin and shaping in iniquity, as Psalm 51.5 says, or even Job
14 and verse number 4, where it says, who can bring a clean
thing out of an unclean? And that's a statement, if you
want just to look at Job 14 for a moment, that's a statement
that deals with this matter of inheriting a corrupt nature. Job 14 verse 1 says, man that
is born of a woman, so it's dealing with man and his birth. is coming
into the world. Job chapter 14. It's really focusing
here in the opening verses on man's brevity and frailty, and
so we're born of a woman and we're short of days. Job 14,
we're full of trouble, we come forth like a flower, we're cut
down, and so on. And then verse 4, who can bring
a clean thing out of an unclean? Not one. In other words, the
clean thing That is, can a clean thing come forth from an unclean? And the reference, of course,
is to our birth and to what we've inherited from our first parents,
and we've been shown here that they are unclean, and therefore
you cannot have a clean thing coming out of an unclean thing. It's simply saying, again, in
another way, that we're all born with a sinful nature. with a
corrupt nature, and therefore the corruption of human nature
is clearly taught in the Word of God. Now this matter of the
corruption of man's nature involves two main issues. The first of
these we will look at today mostly, and then we'll comment on the
second if time allows us toward the very end. What are they?
Total depravity, total inability. Those are the two matters that
are involved in this issue of our inheritance of a corrupt
nature from the very time that man fell, and so total depravity. And so the term total depravity,
again I said you don't be scared of it. Don't think that this
is some kind of a term that is designed to baffle you. No, it's
not. It's a reflection of what man
is by nature. and he is totally depraved. It
has to do with this issue of the pollution or the corruption
inherited from the fall of man. And let me say to begin with
here, dealing with total depravity, It has been denied, and of course
it's still being denied by various schools of thought as we read
and we look at what men say. And so down through the generations,
down through the history of Christ's church, total depravity has been
denied by various schools of thought. They all really inherit
their thinking from a man called Pelagius. I've mentioned him
before. He is an important person in
church history, not because he was a good man, but because he
was a heretic. And what he believed and what
he taught has infected generation after generation down through
the history of Christ's church. And so he was a fifth-century
British monk, And he taught various matters concerning this whole
issue of man and his state. And as he did so, he denied certain
very important doctrines. And one of them is, he denied
original sin. He denied the transmission of
Adam's guilt to his posterity. He denied the transmission of
a corrupt nature from Adam to the human race. and Pelagius,
and therefore from that name of this man you get the term
Pelagianism. And it is the name of a school
of theological thought. Well, maybe a better way to put
it is the name of the school of heresy, but that's where you
get it from. His name, Pelagius, gives you
that term Pelagianism. Well, he held to some very unscriptural
notions. Let me give you a few of them.
He taught that Adam was not created with a positively holy will,
but that his will was equally balanced between good and evil. And so he says that God created
the first man with this will that was balanced between good
and evil, whereas the Bible shows us that God made man upright.
We've looked at this in our earlier studies here in relation to this
doctrine of the fall of man. But Pelagius taught that man's
will was equally balanced between good and evil, that his will
was not disposed toward being holy, that he did not have a
positive holiness. And again, we have touched on
that and dealt with that in earlier studies. Pelagius believed and
taught that sin is comprised only in separate acts of the
will. and has nothing to do with the
dispossession or the bias of a man's will. And so because
he didn't believe that man's will was positively biased toward
holiness, but was in this state of balance between good and evil,
he went on to say that sin really resides in man's will. And according
to what a man chooses, then he becomes guilty of sin. And I'll
come back to that a little later, but that's one thing he taught.
He taught as well that human nature was not ruined and inclined
towards sin by the fall. He proceeded from there to say
that God actually creates every man with the same natural ability
that he had bestowed on Adam at the very beginning. In other
words, he does not believe, he did not believe that in man there
is this sinful disposition now. When God creates man, it is when
every man is born after Adam. Rather than having a sinful disposition,
Pelagius denied this and he said that man had this balance. Every
man who's born into the world has this balance within his will
between good and evil. Which means that Pelagius believed,
and others following him believe, that man retains the ability
to do good Pelagius taught this very clearly, very forcefully,
that man retains the ability to do good. And so in his theology
or in his teaching, Pelagius had no room for the doctrines
of grace, no place for redemption. Pelagianism holds that man's
will is still equally balanced between good and evil, and therefore
is free and able to practice virtue and so be accepted by
God. And so Pelagius and Pelagianism
were asked, well how do you explain how men are saved? Their answer
would be, man's in a state of equilibrium. and as he chooses
to do good so God is pleased with him and you see they teach
that man has the ability to do good as well as to do evil but
man because of his environment because of maybe the uh example
of other people will choose to do good freely and willingly
and as a result God will be pleased with him that's what Pelagius
taught and let me say that is still been taught there is what's
called semi-Pelagianism. In other words, it's like a halfway
house between salvation by grace and Pelagius' denial of a salvation
by grace. Back in those times, remember
he lived in the fifth century, and before him there was that
great man called Augustine. And Augustine of Hippo, yes,
he had some things that were still clinging to him because
he came out of potpourri, but he was a man who really understood
the doctrines of grace and taught them clearly. And actually what
Augustine taught was the foundation for what Calvin taught at the
time of the Reformation. So Augustine was right on the
matters of the doctrines of grace. The fall of man, all these issues,
he was right on them. And Pelagius rose up, you see,
to deny what Augustine had taught. and to try to undermine it at
his time in history. And then there came others, you
see, and they say, we're taking a halfway house between Augustine
and Pelagius. And so what they taught as these
semi-Pelagians is, yes, that the human will retains some power
to incline toward good though it requires grace for salvation. And so what they went on to say
is that this grace is only given after the first step taken by
man toward God. And that results in the fallacy
that man does not receive Christ to be saved because of grace. Instead, man receives grace after
he has decided to receive Christ. And that is the thinking, that
is the teaching of evangelical, I'll use this term, evangelical
Arminians. They are really semi-Pelagian
in their view. And just think what I've said
there, and I want just to go over it again because there's
a lot there for us to think about. If you think about it carefully,
you will find that in some circles you will hear this coming out.
this very day. In other words, semi-Pelagians,
they hold this notion that human will is in a state of equilibrium. It has power to do good and to
incline toward good. And they go on to say, yes, there
is the grace of God and salvation, but their point is that they
really emphasize that grace and salvation is only given after
a person has decided to trust Jesus Christ. And then he receives
this grace after deciding to trust Christ. And that, my friend,
is a fallacy. Let me say in kindness, there
are some evangelical Arminians who are better than their theology,
who would believe that man is in need of God's intervention.
But this is the basic theology of many people still around today
in evangelical circles. They believe that man has an
ability to do good. And when it comes to spiritual
things, they believe that man has the ability of himself to
choose Christ, or inclined toward God. And as he takes that first
step, then God rewards him with grace. Whereas the Bible teaches
that grace comes first. And through the operation of
grace in the human heart, then a man chooses Christ or trusts
in Jesus Christ. And I want you to understand
these points because they're very, very important. A failure
to understand total depravity leads to a failure to understand
the rest of the doctrines of grace. This is the vital area. Is man totally depraved? What
does that mean? And what exactly is it? And so
we're working our way through what has happened in history
when men like Pelagius rose up and they corrupted the stream
and the spring of truth and their heretical notions continue with
us to this very day. But all of this is against Scripture
because the universal corruption of man is clearly taught in the
Word of God. Think of what God saw about the
human race at that point when He chose to destroy the world
with a flood. What did God see when He looked
at the heart of man? Turn with me to Genesis, please,
because what you find here is important for different reasons,
but we want to look at it and read it. Genesis 6, verse number
5. And God saw that the wickedness
of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of
the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And it
repented the Lord that he made man on the earth, and it grieved
him at his heart. But verse 5 is the key verse
here, Genesis 6 verse number 5, where we are given a view
of what God saw in man. The wickedness of man was great
in the earth. And that's the whole array of transgressions
of which man was guilty at that time. His wickedness in the earth. It was a great wickedness. His
different kinds of sin that he was practicing. But why? Well,
look at the rest of the verse. It was because every imagination
of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. Now, brethren and sisters, that
is a display of the corruption of human nature in the days when
Noah lived. The thoughts of his heart, indeed
it's so fine of a detail, that every imagination of the thoughts
of his heart was only evil continually. And here's the heart, here is
the thinking, here is actually the imaginings of man in that
day that led him to practice the wickedness that then led
God to destroy the earth. It all came from human nature. It came from the heart of man. came from the depths of his soul.
Now if that were true then, it's most certainly true today. Human
nature never changes. It remains as it always was down
through the passage of time. Turn to Genesis 8 and verse number
21. Genesis 8 verse 21. And it says
toward the end of that verse, the imagination of man's heart
is evil from his youth. Just those words. We're not looking
at the rest of the verse, for it's not appropriate or it's
not relevant at this point, but just those words, the imagination
of man's heart is even from his youth. What's the point here?
This is after the flood. This is now when there's a new
beginning, when man in the form of Noah and his three sons, and
their wives, and Noah's own wife. They all step out onto the earth
that God has judged and God has cleansed in the sense of wiping
away the human race. But what do we find? We find
that what God saw in the human heart before the flood, he sees
still in the heart of man after the flood. The heart of man hasn't
changed. You see, there was the cleansing
of the earth and that sense of judgment. But judgment doesn't
change a sinner's heart. That's a very telling verse.
It's just the same, you see, when you come to think about
people who are lost. People who throughout eternity will be under
the pains of eternal punishment. Remember that divine punishment
is not intended to change people. Divine punishment is just that. It's divine punishment. You've
heard people preach and say, if only we could get sinners
to see into hell and hear the cries of the damned, oh how they
would repent. Let me tell you something, not
one person would repent if that were allowed. It's not allowed
anyhow. But if sinners were able to look into hell and hear the
cries of the damned, they would still not repent. Why? Because punishment was never
intended to change man's nature. Divine punishment is punishment
for sin. It is not a form of sanctification
or salvation. No way. Well, yes, it might be
a warning, But men have been warned all the time, but it doesn't
change their nature. They go back to their sin because
they love their sin. Here's the problem, brethren
and sisters, the heart of man The corrupt nature that's in
man. I'm not going to take time to
go through other verses here. I'm just simply stating that this
matter of universal corruption in the human race is clearly
presented in the Word of God everywhere. So, there we have
the denial of total depravity in church history, and yet it's
a denial of what the Bible teaches. But then there is defining total
depravity. What exactly is total depravity? Let me mention a few things that
total depravity doesn't mean. I'll go through them quickly
here because our time is running on very rapidly here. Total depravity
does not mean that every unsaved man will indulge in every form
of sin. You see, there are many people
who are on regenerate and they will be horrified at wickedness
in others, and they'll not practice those sins that others practice
openly. So total depravity does not mean
that every unsaved man will indulge in every form of sin or every
kind of sin. It does not mean, total depravity,
that the sinner is devoid of any knowledge at all of the will
of God. That's not total depravity. You see, written on the heart
of every man there is the law of God. And every man has this
innate knowledge of the will of God and the law of God to
some degree or other. He does have it there. Even the
heathen have it. It's all darkened and clouded,
I know, but it's there. Total depravity does not mean
that the sinner is without a conscience. that determines or distinguishes
between good and evil. Again, the Bible and of course
experience show the presence of a conscience in fallen man. Total depravity does not mean
that the sinner is completely or absolutely depraved. In other words, sinful men, because
of the remains of the image of God in man and the restraints
of common grace, Remember how we studied common grace a few
years ago? The restraints of common grace, the image of God
and man, can and do act in ways, lead them to act in ways that
are moral and upright. And this is a fact of life. You
have men in this world down through the centuries and they have been
lauded and praised because of their philanthropy and they support
all kinds of good causes in terms of helping orphans or giving
vast amounts of wealth to set up institutions and so forth
to help people. And that's all good in that sense. And that's just a little example
of how total depravity does not mean that man is completely or
absolutely depraved. It doesn't mean that at all.
Along with these other things, it doesn't mean. So, therefore,
what does it mean? What does total depravity actually
mean? What does this term signify? It signifies that sin's corruption
pervades the whole character of man from the earliest moments
of his existence. He comes forth from his mother's
womb, and he has a corrupt nature. He is morally corrupt. And that
corruption extends itself to all the faculties and the powers
of both body and soul. Now, here is the key thing. Total
depravity means, as well as what I've just said, that in man there
is no spiritual good at all. That's the issue. Yes, there
can be some moral goodness in the sense of what I've just mentioned,
men doing noteworthy things, helping people, and actually
believing in certain standards for living, and that's morality. So what we're seeing is that
unsaved men, fallen men, men who are actually totally depraved,
can have traits and features about them that are morally good. But there is one thing that no
sinner has, and that is the matter of spiritual good. And that is
the key issue. No sinner possesses spiritual
good in any degree and therefore cannot please God. That leads
me therefore to mention in closing today total inability, because
the one flows out of the other, And the order I've taken here
is the right order of studying these things. Total depravity,
the corruption of man's nature, we've seen what it isn't and
what it is, and we've come to this point of realizing that
the real hallmark of total depravity is that there is no spiritual
good in man at all. None. Now, that leads us to say
to total inability, which simply means this. that since corruption
extends to every part of his being, man is incapable of changing
his character or acting in a way that is distinct from his corruption. He is not capable of discerning
or loving or choosing things that are pleasing to God, that
are clearly presented in the Scriptures. In other words, it's
this issue of his inability to choose anything that's spiritually
good. He just cannot do that. And what is that? What is the realm that we're
talking about here? It's the realm of salvation. Man has a
will, remember, fallen man, that is inclined toward evil. The
disposition. Learn these terms. Get to know
them because they're very important. You can call it the bias of the
will, the inclination of the will, the disposition of the
will. They all mean the same thing.
In other words, the way in which the will leans. And the Bible
makes it very clear that man's will is bent toward sin completely
and away from God, which means that the inclination of his will
is such that he cannot choose that which is spiritually good.
It's impossible for him. As we saw there, who can bring
a clean thing out of the unclean? So here's man's unclean nature
is corrupt, and the greatest result of that corruption is
that in man there is no spiritual good at all, and that's his depravity. And remember that touches every
faculty of his being. Man's soul has various faculties. We talk about the will or the
understanding or the conscience and so on, the affections. They're
all faculties of the soul. Man only has one soul, but it's
through his soul that the will and the conscience and the understanding
and the affections all operate because they're all faculties
of the soul. And therefore, since man's whole being is corrupt
in the sense that every faculty has been ruined and destroyed
by the corruption of sin, that means that man can't understand
the gospel left to himself. Man, in his conscience, will
try to make himself or convince himself that he is okay. That's
how the conscience works in a fallen man. Well, there may be, and
there are, those pricks of conscience, even at times a feeling of deep
guilt. And what will he do? Will he
run to the Lord? Will he choose Christ? No, left
himself he won't. He'll try to cover up. He'll
try to make things out to be not what they really are. His
conscience, you see, is defiled. And therefore, he will not make
any choice that is right, because that conscience, being defiled
and being corrupted by sin, will not in any true sense recognize
his guilt. And you go through every faculty
of the soul, the will, that's the vital thing, the will of
man. And the will of man as such, as we're seeing, is disposed
to self and sin and the world and corruption, and therefore
there is no spiritual good in man. That's his depravity. And
that means that he is unable to choose that which is right.
I mean, in the sense of salvation. He will just not do that, left
to himself. And so, total inability is the
outworking of his total depravity. Now, that is fiercely denied.
Fiercely denied. That point I'm making is hated. You know why? Because it leaves
man in the dust. It leaves man in the situation,
if God doesn't save him, he'll never be saved. That's where
he is. It's hated by room. Rome hates and disbelieves, or
disbelieves and hates. this doctrine of man's total
inability. Rome, of course, is completely
wrong on depravity. I've already touched on this
in previous studies, but the church of Rome believes that
man has retained ability, and those so-called natural gifts
that God gave Adam at the very beginning weren't affected by
the fall, and man still has those natural gifts, and therefore
man can do good works. and so earn favor with God, and
we abhor that completely. But let me tell you, my dear
friend, that is also found in some Protestant circles. Well,
supposedly Protestant. Let's get right down to the nub
here. True Protestantism never believed this, because true Protestantism
is what came out of the Reformation, and the Reformation is a complete
rejection of Pelagianism and semi-Pelagianism with regard
to man's state and man's condition. And yet, in certain circles that
go on to the name of Protestant or Evangelical, you have this
teaching still there. And so, they will still teach,
man has a free will. That's the common expression.
I believe in free will, but I trust in the biblical sense, and I
hope you believe in free will in the biblical sense. What is
man's free will? It must be understood in relation
to what man is, fallen, guilty, corrupt. Now God hasn't removed
his will, and he's a free agent in the sense that he can make
decisions and he can make choices, but they're all governed by this
matter of the incarnation of his will. And so what is the
true definition of free will? It is the fact that man is free
only to choose according to the disposition of his will. That was always true. That was
always true. But that's what free will is.
It's man free to choose according to the disposition or the inclination
of his will, which means that he's free only to sin. That's
really the biblical definition of the doctrine of free will.
Man is free only to sin because his soul is inclined only towards
sin. And I believe in that. And so,
here's man stricken with total inability that flows out of his
total depravity. And what's to become of him?
What's going to happen to him? Well, that leads me Next week,
if I'm still here and alive, to take you into the next result
of the fall, that is the intervention of grace that we find in Genesis
chapter 3. Not a result of the fall itself,
but really that came because the fall had taken place. God's
great promise. in Genesis 3.15. We have to look
at that before we leave this study in the doctrine of the
fall of man and try to sum it all up. And so, our time is away
here, a bitter bow in prayer, and may the Lord bless His Word
to our hearts and be with us today as we continue on. Let's
really seek Him with all our hearts for a great awakening,
for that's what's needed as we think about the depravity and
the inability of man. Lord, move this day and get a
hold of sinners. and draw them to Yourself. Bless
Thy Word to our hearts and keep Your hand upon us as we continue
in the worship of Thee, Almighty God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,
we pray in Jesus' name. Amen.
Original Sin-the Corruption of Man
Series The Doctrine of Man's Fall
| Sermon ID | 31818619234 |
| Duration | 45:27 |
| Date | |
| Category | Bible Study |
| Bible Text | Romans 3:9-18 |
| Language | English |
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