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.