In the Book of Romans, chapter 5, verse 12, we read, Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin, and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sin. There are two major thoughts brought out in that one verse of Scripture. First of all, the fact of man's fall. And secondly, the respects that were produced by them. Now, the major purpose of preaching the gospel of our Savior is to see sinners brought to the Lord Jesus Christ. That's our desire. I believe that that is the desire of every person that has stood before you in this conference and preached from his heart from the word of God. of proclaiming these truths is to shut people up to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and see them brought by the Spirit of God unto the Lord Jesus Christ. But the way to this end lies through their having a sense of their misery without Christ, their inability to remedy their misery and to have an overwhelming consciousness of the guilt of sin that lies upon them that has brought forth the wrath and displeasure of God Almighty against the whole human race." I want to read a statement by Spurgeon on this particular matter. The great Charles Haddon Spurgeon made this statement, The preacher's business is not to convert men, but the very reverse. It is idle to attempt to heal those who are not wounded, to attempt to clothe those who have never been stripped, and to make those rich who have never realized their poverty. There must be a probing of men's hearts with the Lord before we can rightly bring to them the healing of the gospel. Old Robby Flockhart Simile was a good one. He said, you may take a piece of silk thread and try to sew with it as long as you like, but you will do nothing with it alone. You want a sharp, piercing needle to go first, and that will draw the silken thread at you. The needle of the law prepares the way for the thread of the gospel. There must be birth pangs, or there will be no child born. The old-fashioned grace of repentance is not to be dispensed with. There must be sorrow for sin. There must be a broken and a contrite heart. Christ is a sinner's Savior, and if a man is not a sinner, Christ has no salvation for him. Therefore, it is through the message of original sin that we bring about through God's power a sense of man's inability and shut him up to the gospel. I believe that a preaching of the doctrine of dispassionate and original sin in the power of God's Spirit will produce humiliation more than any other thing we could say to a self-sufficient, pride-filled sinner that has not been humbled at the feet of the Lord Jesus Christ. We need to get to this doctrine, and we need to preach it without apology whatsoever. We need to bring forth to men the stern of their guilt because of a of the corrupted nature that is inherent and passed to them through their natural birth. The great Theop, who was an old Puritan, made these statements concerning our depravity. He said, This flesh of ours hath principles against all God's principles, and laws against all God's laws, and reasons against all God's reasons. Oh, if we could but one whole hour seriously think of the impure issue of our hearts, it would bring us down upon our knees in humiliation before God. But we can never, whilst we live, so thoroughly as we should see into the depths of our deceitful hearts, nor yet be humbled enough for what we see. For though we speak of it and confess it, yet we are not so sharpened against this corrupt flesh of ours as we should. How should it humble us that the seeds of the vilest sin, even of the sin against the Holy Ghost, is in us? And no thank to us that they break not out. It should humble us to hear of any great enormous sin in another man. considering what our own nature would proceed unto if it were not restrained by God's common grace. We daily see our own nature in them as faith answering faith. If God should take his Spirit from us, there is enough in us to defile the whole world. And although we be engrafted in the Christ, Yet we carry about us a relish of the old stock still. Now, that's man. That's man. A heart that is filled with every sort of principle that is against every principle of God Almighty. A law that would stand up and cry down every law of God Almighty. Total depravity, total corruption. Man is born a sinner. Now, I've heard all of my life, beloved, and you'd be surprised how full-aged I was before I was exposed to anything differently. And I don't remember the first time that I was ever taken to a Baptist church, but I was told all my life that when a person reached the age of accountability, he then and there became a sinner. The time that he committed his first sin and recognized that as a sin, that he then and there became a sinner. And all of my life, I thought that when I would reach the age of 12 years, I'd be a sinner. I'd be a sinner. Now, there's no truth in that. If that's so, we ought to pass a law that kills every infant born into the world. Man is born into this world a sinner. I despise the snake, whether it be a babe of a day old or one that has lived ten years. And a man in the sight of God Almighty is a corrupted sinner, whether it be an infant in the womb of another, or whether it be a horrified man of eighty years. You and I have a tendency to despise a maggot more so than the full-grown fly, and yet the maggot is merely the fly in a baby. Now you turn with me, please, to the Book of Psalms. I don't know how to preach a message like this in gentleness and sweetness, brother. Mahan said, I'm the meanest-looking man in the world in the book. I've never seen one like you. That's to bear witness. But in Psalms 51, verse 5, we read, Behold, I was shapen in iniquity, and in sin I was did my mother conceive me." Now, the old Puritan Clarkson was criticized for making this statement, but I believe that he was absolutely right. He said the word conceived there is taken from a Hebrew word that originally means indignation and war, and that the implication of the birth is that the moment that we're warmed in the womb, the indignation of God is against us. If I'm born a sinner with the wrath of God upon me, then I am conceived, I'm born, and I grow up under the wrath of God in a natural state. Now, that's so we're sinners by birth. Verse 3, The wicked are restrained from the womb. They go astray as soon as they be born, speaking lies. The Bible never made a mistake there, and I was convinced of that as soon as the Lord gave us a child. I have a baby three years old, and she's been lying ever since she's been here. Way in the night hours, she could tell the biggest lies and never speak a word. She thinks she was dying and all the world she wanted was attention. A big hypocrite lying there in a bundle that I loved with all my heart. Now we're sinners. We're sinners and we need, I'm serious about this, we need this present-day sentimentalism broken down and destroyed, and faced the word of God as reasonable creatures. A preacher down in southeast Alabama approached me one day. I was visiting that hell revival. He said, Brother Griswold, I want to know if you said what I hear you say. I said, What is it? He said, In this revival, did you say that babies go to hell? I said, No. Well, then, did you say that they go to heaven? I said, no. He said, what did you say? I said, I didn't say. Because I believe that where the scriptures are silent, it behooves me to remain silent. But I said, if you want something to get mad about, let me ask you this question. I said, were there any babies in the days of the flood or when God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah? And I left him, I said. Now, folks want something to chew about. and to get mad about, I'm going to make them answer questions if I've got to answer them. I don't pass any judgment upon what God does with the human race, but I'll tell you this, whatever he does is absolutely right, and I put a hearty amen upon anything that he passes judgment upon, regardless of what it might be. I don't know, our sentimentalism seems to think that God owes us something. He owes us something as a baby more than he does now. But the whole human race is corrupted and is born into the world under corruption, and they merely grow, manifesting that corruption with greater ability until they're stopped in the way by the converting grace of God Almighty. There lies within the heart of that infant that you nestle to your bosom enough iniquity for God to bring forth a new hell, if it so please. Yes, we are sinners, corrupted by nature. Now, the saddest thing about it is that every person delights It is the natural bent of man to follow the ways of the flesh, and to be enslaved to the flesh, and to love the dictates of the flesh. Let me read just one more time from Tibbs, where it says, We take delight in our natural corruption, whence it comes to pass that our souls are carried along in an easy to the committing of any sin without opposition. In other words, we love sin as long as there is no opposition or fear of getting caught. And a lot of present-day modern repentance is nothing in the world but remorse because somebody caught a sinner and the preacher told it to his mouth. Rather than a real dying of a self-love principle and of taking sides with God in judgment against oneself, to lie at the feet of a sovereign Lord with a full resignation that he might do as he pleases with us." I believe that's exactly where true evangelical repentance resides. Now listen, he said, we enjoy it as long as we can commit it without opposition. Because it is natural, therefore, it is unwearied and restless, as like bodies are not wearied in their motion upwards, nor heavy bodies in their motion downwards, nor a stream in its running to the sea, because it is natural. Hence it is that the old man is never tired in the works of the flesh, nor ever drawn dry. When men cannot act sin, yet they will love sin. and acted over again by pleasing thought of it, and by sinful speculations, such out of the delight of sin itself, and to grieve not for their sin, but because they want strength and opportunity to commit it. If men would not leave them, they would never leave sin. We are born in sin. Now, the question that arises in the minds of the normal person that sits in our congregation today is this. Why? Why is it that we are brought into this world with sin? How does all of this come about? And here it is necessary that we turn to the word of God and refresh our memory with the text that we have a federal head and a natural father that acted in our stead as our representative and within his loins the whole race as a species resting there as the seed was in Abraham and paid tithes for Levi. Therefore, Adam's sin was our sin. Adam's disinclination was ours. opposition to God and a pleasurable inclination away from it. We sinned in Adam, therefore we are born into this world under the misery of Adam's sin, under the wrath of God of his sin, and under his inability to do anything about it. Corrupted sinners. Let me read just several verses of scripture without any comment, if you might see this. Read our text again. Wherefore, as by one man, that is, by Adam, sin entered into the world, and death by sin, until death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned. Now look in verse 15, "'But not as the offence, so also as the free gift. For if through the offence of one many be dead, much more the grace of God and the life by grace which is by one man Jesus Christ hath abounded unto many.' Verse 17, "'For if by one man's offence death reigned by one, much more they which receive abundance of grace and that the gift of righteousness shall reign in life by one Jesus Christ. Verse 18, Therefore, as by the offense of one judgment came upon all men the condemnation, even so by the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men on the justification of life. Verse 19, For as by one man disobedient many were made sinners. So by the obedience of one, shall many be made righteous." So there we see the federal headship of Adam. Also, in speaking of Adam's fall into sin, I think that it is absolutely imperative that we understand that the act of transgression itself, whereby Adam took the fruit was not the sin that plunged him into the fall. He fell before he ever took that fruit. The moment that he was dissatisfied with God and determined to reach forth against God, he fell, and the taking of the fruit was an outward manifestation of the transition that had already transpired in his heart. That's so, that's so, absolutely so. Therefore, in the fall of Adam we see these certain causes and characteristics. First of all, his transgression was a breach of the positive law of God. We're told by the Apostle John in his first epistle that sin is the transgression of the law. Adam was not under law and had no law, but Adam would not have sinned if he had not transgressed the law of God. He transgressed a positive preceptive law when God had commanded him to refrain. Also he transgressed the law of nature that was imprinted within his heart and mind as a perfect creature from the hand of God Almighty. Could God have kept Adam from sin, it would be silly to answer that question any other than saying, absolutely, if he had so decreed. I do not question or try to get involved in the secret decrees of God, but I'm sure that God stood back and withheld his restraining grace. and left Adam to his own free will and sovereign choice, and Adam transgressed, and that put to death the freedom of man's will. Ever since that transgression, man's will has been in bondage to sin, and man has only been able to follow the addiction of his nature, which is downward and from God Almighty. Now, that's brought out in Genesis 2. Secondly, Adam sinned by holding contempt for the highest authority of the universe. When Adam sinned, he held God's authority in contempt, and there was a despising and the hatred of God's absolute right and rulership over him. Ever since, his children have been despising the authority of his word and the authority of his sovereignty. And if we weren't the children of our father, Adam, and so much like him, you'd find people by nature rejoicing in the fact that God's will is absolutely supreme and is the major objective. Now, my beloved, Adam hated that will. You and I are born into the world hating that will and anything else that will restrain us. had a fearlessness of God's displeasure. He did not fear the warning of God. He did not fear the evil consequences that God had threatened in case of a transgression. Romans 3, after disclosing the case of man where God as a doctor shows us how filthy we are inwardly, As a historian, how filthy we are in our actions as we find that he gives the reason there is no fear of God before their eyes. Man doesn't fear God. I personally believe that the reason that such a conference is where there is constantly the sounding note of God's great sovereignty and his pleasure and his purpose and the nothingness of man, causes me to suffer a depression of spirit and a spiritual fall that not overcomes for several days as I depart. For man ever sees the glory of God. He'll be brought down into the dust to steal, and he will not be as likely to transgress his law, whether he have an excuse of his standing in the church or not. Fourthly, Adam's transgression was brought about because of a disbelief and a lack of trust in God's truth. God said, you'll die. Satan said, you'll not die. I said, I believe Satan. I'll take sides with my wife in this, and a disbelief of God's truth brought about his transgression. It's still manifesting itself. People don't believe truth. We're susceptible to error. We love error by nature. If it's not so, why is it that I can remember pills? that I was exposed to over twelve and fifteen years ago, especially back when I was in the Navy, and even have tormenting dreams as the result of some of these things. But it is a pain in the brain and in the heart to study and to dig into God's word, and if there is not a constant refreshing of our hearts in these great truths, Because we are susceptible by nature to error, in that our father Adam disbelieved the truth of God in his transgressions. Also, we see this in Adam's fall, a taking the argument and believing the creature of over the Creator. Folks don't care what God says. It's whether they're pleasing to a people, to a party, to a clique, to a clan, it doesn't matter what God says. I made the statement to some of the brethren sometime this week that presents a problem to me. I have some ladies in my church. that had rather convinced me. I'm not limiting this to the women alone, but it just happens to be that I've noticed it amongst the women folk. I have some ladies in my church that had rather convinced me that they were saved and to be assured of the fact that they were in favor with God himself. I don't understand why we are so concerned with a creature's idea about man. It does not bother me one wick whether the world thinks I am in the favor of God or not. The thing that is the burden of my life is to walk well-pleasing to him and see a conformity of his son in my life. Oh, so Adam was discontent with God's poverty. I don't know what he could have asked for more. But he was discontented, for if there had not been a discontentment, there would not have been a susceptibility to temptation. Discontent and dissatisfied with the poverty of God Almighty. Now, don't we see the coughing out of sin today on the account of that one thing? We get discontented with what God's doing in his providence, so we set out to build up our own systems to accomplish what our hearts search for. I appreciated the scriptures Brother Bradley read in the Psalms. I needed that weight on the Lord. It's not my nature to weigh, but we must weigh on the Lord. Now let me give to you the effects of the fall. We read, Wherefore, as by one man came entered into the world, and death death by sin, and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned." Someone says, well, I don't believe in the imputation of Adam's guilt and the passing down of his corruption. Well, it doesn't matter, it says all have sinned. You rule out the rest, you still stand before God guilty, all have sinned. The only reason that I know it so is because we've followed his pattern. We've followed his pattern, we've acted like our father has. Now, sin defiles man totally and absolutely. You study the scriptures and you'll find where every part of man's body, as well as every part of his soul, has been touched with sin. I'm going to make this statement, it might bear correcting, but what puts me to thinking about this is that I have read some that have the reputation of being sound in the faith that have made the statement time and again that man is not as corrupted as he can be. Now, let me put out this as my own I believe that if a person goes astray right here on this foundational doctrine, you can look out for him all the way through. I got up and made this statement one time, and I almost felt sure that nobody that I had talked that night, including my own wife and one of the preachers in the church, I had really understood the work of God's grace. I made the statement that any person who was not willing and who had not been made willing and brought to see that they deserved nothing but hell, and that the only claim that they could lay hold upon God was that his justice confined them to eternal misery, were never introduced to the grace of God. does not lie within our hearts, we still think that there is something within us that deserves recognition from God and salvation. God doesn't overthink. Now, I believe that man is just as corrupted as he can be. Maybe this is a quibbling over phrase. The only difference is that under laws of the nation, cultural training and education, and the common grace of God Almighty in operation, some are not allowed to express and manifest their corruption as deeply as others. And God forbid that any man ever be allowed to express his full ability in sinning against God. Let me give you these three things. how man is almost, or how man is totally controlled by sin, because man has been touched with sin, and in the fall of Adam there was a corruption of his understanding, of his affection, and of his will. Now, that just about covers the subject. Man's understanding is darkened, it's alienated, it's twisted. And you can just read the scriptures that speak of the darkened understanding of the sinner. That's why the very first operations of God's Holy Spirit in revealing the glories of Christ Jesus begin in the mind. Removing the veil, illuminating, adding light, showing truth. As far as the understanding goes astray, the affections are going astray. We love what we ought not to love, we hate what we ought to love. We desire those things that are not good for us and would not have those things that are absolutely good for us. The natural man is destitute of love toward God. No matter how much he boasts of his love toward God, it is not the God of the Bible, and I can prove that. All you have to do is read Romans, chapter 9, with no comment whatsoever and he'll get I had a young man in my church, the first time he ever heard me preach, he said to his wife after they finished that, that I was with him the first time I get an opportunity. A few weeks later I baptized him, and now he's one of the most faithful witnesses that I have. One of these Texas evangelists is preaching over one of those I've had covers every place in the continent and some places outside, has landed there in Birmingham and he's cutting hair over in Wylam, near where we live. And so my member, who's got more brass than he has understanding, walked into the barber shop, opened his Bible and read Ephesians chapter 1 and said, Do you believe that? He said, Not the way you read it. I have darkened understanding and a twisted affection because he doesn't love the God of Ephesians, chapter 1. See, destitute of the love of God, no longer conscious of his love in Christ Jesus, and destitute of reverence toward him. and an inborn aversion toward all of those that would honor him by their praise and worship. Man's will is absolutely to praise and embond it. A thing always follows its nature. You can't feed an Alabama buzzard ice cream. He just has no desire for it. You can't be the depraved sinner, the things of the Lord, because it has no desire for us. He's spoken of as being at enmity with God Almighty, full of hatred, hardness of heart, aversion, Christ said you will not, obstinacy, stiff neck, and in bondage to several things. Now, that's the will of man. Adam had a free will, but you see where it got us. I want to read you a statement by Ho Chi Minh. I thoroughly enjoyed this. Whosoever will may come. He's showing that the song is absolutely all right singing, if it's understood. He said to be sure, then, the theme of the hymn is a biblical one. Whosoever is a thirst may drink, only a glutton would drink and eat when he's not thirsty and hungry, and the book of Proverbs said, you ought to cut his throat if he's a glutton. That would eliminate a lot of creatures. Whosoever is hungry may eat, whosoever is in need may ask and he will receive, whosoever desires salvation may seek. Now, you get that phrasing. Whosoever desires salvation is at liberty to seek the Lord. And he shall find whosoever is weary and burdened may come to Jesus for rest. Therefore, whosoever will, may come. Let us recall briefly what is implied in the truth of salvation through the free and sovereign grace of God alone. It means, in general, that God is the sovereign Lord. Also, in the matter of salvation, salvation is, from its beginning to its end, a mighty wonder work of God, no less marvelous and therefore no less divine than the work of creation itself. It is that wonder work of the Almighty by which he calls light out of darkness, righteousness out of unrighteousness, everlasting glory out of deepest shame, immortality out of death, and heaven out of hell. It is the wonder of grace whereby God lifts an accursed world out of the depth of its misery into the glory of his heavenly kingdom and covenant. That work is absolutely divine. Man has no part in it and cannot possibly cooperate with God in his own salvation. In no sense of the word, and at no stage of the work, Does salvation depend upon the will or work of man, or wait for the determination of his will? In fact, the sinner is of himself neither capable nor willing to receive that salvation. On the contrary, all he can do and will is to oppose, to resist his own salvation with all the determination of his sinful heart. But God ordained and prepared this salvation with absolutely sovereign freedom for his own, his chosen ones alone, and upon them he bestows it, not because they see and desire it, but in spite of the fact that they never will it, and because he is stronger than man's will. He overcomes the hardest, hardest, and the most stubborn will of the sinner. He reconciles the sinner unto himself, he justifies him, and gives him the faith in Christ. He delivers him from the power and dominion of sin and sanctifies him. He preserves him. All this belongs to the wonder of salvation, which is accomplished through sovereign grace alone. Therefore, as you sit there, it's true forever with you.