Let's pray together. Our Father, as we have expressed in song, our appreciation and adoration for what you have done for us. Father, we thank you. That you did not wait for us, but that you intervened in our behalf. That you let us hear your voice. Father, I pray this morning that you would help me by the power of your Holy Spirit to convey to these dear people their and mine, our lost condition before you saved us. I pray, Father, that you would help me to communicate this with clarity so that you would be honored and glorified. so that those who love your salvation would magnify your name so that we would bow in humble worship for what you have done in our lives. Lord, I pray that you would bless this hour as we celebrate and remember the death of our Lord Jesus Christ, that we have been reconciled and have found peace with God. because of his finished work on the cross. Lord, I pray bless. Empower this hour. For it is in Christ's name we pray, amen. One pastor said in regards to the passage of Scripture that we're getting ready to turn to, he said that you will find out things about yourself in this particular passage of Scripture that you will not find anywhere else in the world. You will learn things about yourself from the Word of God, and especially as you read in Ephesians chapter 2, that no one else would tell you. You will not find it in the highest learning institutions. They would not tell this to you. Psychiatrists, psychologists are not going to tell this to you. You're not going to turn on the television and hear from the mass media what the Word of God is going to tell you. As a matter of fact, you will not find any source outside of the Word of God that is going to tell you about your condition before God saves you other than the Bible. And it is unfortunate that you're going to find many churches and Sunday school classes that are not even going to tell you what the Word of God says about you before you were saved. And it is a shame. And it is robbing God of the true glory and majesty and wonder of what our salvation really is. If you have your Bibles, I would encourage you to turn to the book of Ephesians chapter 2. Because the Bible is going to tell you something about your lost condition. Something so horrific and something so terrible that man is offended when he hears it. He doesn't like it. It is offensive to his pride. It is offensive to his natural inclination that he's not that bad. It's an offense to his sensibilities, his spiritual sensibilities. I'd like for you to read and follow along with me as I read Ephesians chapter 2, and I'm going to read down through verse 4, actually. And you were dead in your trespasses and sins, in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience. Among them, we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest. But God, being rich in mercy because of his great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ. By grace, you have been saved. Last week, as we began to describe the utterly lost condition of man, We describe them, first of all, as being patently unable to save themselves. And we look just at that one little phrase, and you were dead in your trespasses and sins. You were clearly and obviously unable to save yourself. Now, Paul is speaking to the church at Ephesus. He is speaking to believers and he is recounting to them their past before God saved them. And as he recounts their past, and he recounts your past before you were saved, he is, in essence, telling us the present biography of all who are lost now. who are not saved, who are dead. Unbelievers are, according to Scriptures, dead in their trespasses and sins. They are patently unable to save themselves. It is a hopeless condition. Now, this morning we're going to advance and we're going to move on. Because as we think for a moment about someone being dead, patently, clearly unable to help themselves, we may have a tendency to thank all these poor people. These poor people, how could God be angry with dead people that cannot save themselves? How could God send these poor, lost people to hell because they're dead? They're dead in their trespasses and sins. It's not fair. Paul goes on to describe for us what it actually means to be dead in your trespasses and sins. And it's even worse. It's even more incriminating to man. Because far from thinking that man is just helpless and hopeless, he is. And that he's just this poor creature that cannot save himself. Paul pictures you in your lost condition in a far worse condition, if you can imagine that. That you are dead. You are patently unable to save yourself. Because, and here's the second point of our sermon that we're going to talk about today. You are patently unable to save yourself because, two, you were pathetically unwilling to be saved. That is the title of the message this morning. You, before you were saved, were pathetically unwilling to be saved. And that's what Paul means when he talks about being unable to save yourself. When he talks about being dead in your trespasses and sins, he goes on to describe what that means to be dead, and it is so incriminating, so, if you will, damning to mankind, that he says it is so your fault. You are so rightfully under the wrath of God that the Bible concludes you are dead. And the problem is with your will. The Bible says you are dead in your trespasses and sins because you were, before you were saved, so pathetically unwilling to be saved that the Bible says you were dead. Now, this has caused a lot of confusion in the church today when we think about people and their response to the gospel. Because last week we said that people are, because they are dead, they are unable to even believe. We talked about Lazarus. Remember, Lazarus was in the tomb. He was dead. And what did he have to do in order to come back to life? There was nothing he could do. He was dead. He came to life because Jesus spoke the Word and because of his regenerating power. He raised Lazarus from the dead, not on the basis of anything Lazarus could do. Now, when we preach the Gospel and we say, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, We're talking to dead people. But we say that they are unable to believe. What do we mean by that? That man, the lost man, is unable to believe? Is it that unbelievers, or you before you were saved, had some type of physical deficiency or mental incapacity that you could not believe? I don't think the Bible teaches that at all. Belief, although it is a supernatural work, is something that the human mind can do. It's not that unbelievers, when they hear the gospel, that they have some mental paralysis or mental condition that they can't physically believe. So when the Bible says that man is unable to save himself, man is unable to believe, it's not because he lacks something physically or mentally to do so. Because if that were the case, man would very quickly point his finger at God and say, it's not fair. It's not fair. How could you tell me to believe when it's something I cannot do? I think the Bible explains this very clearly. When the Bible says man is dead and unable to save himself, that man is even unable to believe, it is not because he lacks the physical ability to do so, but he lacks something even worse. He lacks the willpower to do so. He is unable because he does not want to. And because man in his lost condition is so utterly opposed to the things of God and does not want the things of God, he is said to be dead to the things of God. Now, I have tried to think in my mind how to illustrate this. About being so opposed to something in my will that it could be said about me that I am dead. And I searched my memory bank and thought through this. What would help us to get a grip on this? To be so unwilling? Because I'm going to share with you in Scripture, as we look at this passage of Scripture, Paul is going to say the problem with man is their will. Their will is depraved and they are unwilling to come to Christ. The only thing that kept coming into my mind, as silly as it may sound, is a hot air balloon. Riding in a hot air balloon. I not only have no desire whatsoever to ride in a hot air balloon, I would be loath to ride in a hot air balloon. I can't think of too many things in this world that I would rather not do than ride in a hot air balloon. There is nothing within me that says, boy, I would just like to get up there and just see what it's like. Zilch. It's not there. You could send me magazines that would talk about how beautiful this hot air balloon is and how powerful it is. And there's not one thing in my being that's going to say, well, OK. I'll try that hot air balloon. I have no desire. There is fear there. I can't imagine being in a little basket thousands of feet off of the air with just air holding me up and a flame with flammable material. I have no desire whatsoever to be in a hot air balloon. I don't care how you tried to persuade me. And it could legitimately be said, I am dead to the passions of hot air balloon flying. I have no desire whatsoever. It is not there. Jonathan Edwards in one of his sermons that describes the nature of man. That man is born, as we will see in our text, man is born an enemy of God. Man is born hostile to the things of God. If you are here this morning and you think you were born a friend of God, you are wrong. The Bible says you were born in enmity with God. Jonathan Edwards spent several sections dealing with how man is born an enemy of God. And he comes across this one section and he asks this question, why do men not come to Christ? Is it because they don't have the physical ability to believe? Is it because there is something lacking in their minds? And he points to one passage. If you hold your place in Ephesians, I'd like you to turn to John, chapter five. John, chapter five. Jesus is confronting the Pharisees, these religious leaders. And Jonathan Edwards points out the problem of man and why he cannot be saved. Verse 40, Jesus said, You are unwilling to come to me that you may have life. Man's problem is that he doesn't want to come to Christ. Man's problem is his will. He is so opposed by nature to the things of God and to who God is as He has revealed Himself in the Word of God through Jesus Christ and the way of salvation, man is by nature opposed to it to the very core of his will. He is so opposed to the things of God But the Bible says he is dead in his trespasses and sins. You look out at unbelievers and you can see it. It is there. When the Bible says that they're dead, it's not that their corpse is there. They're living, they're moving, they're walking around. But start to talk to them about things of God. And there is no desire. Start to witness to people about Jesus and watch their eyes roll behind their head. Start to tell them about church and coming together and fellowshipping together with God's saints. Reading God's Word and praying. And watch the disdain or the boredom. There is no life. They are dead because that is so contrary to what they want to do. Man is patently unable to save himself because he is pathetically unwilling to be saved. Look with me in Ephesians chapter 2. Paul describes the forces that man in his lost state is under. The pattern that he follows in his life For he says in verse one, you were dead in your trespasses and sins. And notice verse two, in which you formally walked. And now he will spell out three forces that dominate man's behavior, man's life, man's will. The first force is an external force. Man chooses willfully to follow, to live a life according to the pattern of the world. Paul says, according to the course of this world. Man's desires, man's bent is towards the mentality of the godless, unbelieving world. That's how he is thinking. When the Bible uses the word world, it can use it in several situations. It can use it as in creation and trees and the glorious, what we have here before us, as you look out and see the moon and the stars, that's the world. But it also uses it very prominently in a much more sinister form, world standing for the world system that stands in absolute opposition to God. It is a worldly system that is anti-Christ, anti-God, and it is said to be the course of the world. Man, by nature, is walking according to the course of the world. The lost man thinks he may be free, thinks he's living his own, but what he is really dominated by, what he is really controlled by is the spirit of the age. And I'll tell you what, you can see this so prominently. You can see it in your children. What is it that establishes what is cool? What is it? What is the force that says wearing your pants halfway down your backside is cool? Where does that come from? Or piercing the nose and the lips and the ears. Where does this whole thing that conforms the way we dress, where does it come from? Who establishes what is cool and what is not? What would make my six-year-old son want to wear clothes so much bigger than what he needs to wear? But if you think it's just kids, look in your high school yearbook. See how you dressed. I look at my high school yearbook and it's so 80s. It's 80s. You look at my parents and it's so 50s. We are dominated by the world and they define for us Our value system. And the unbeliever is dominated by the world system. And they don't even know it. And it's even more sinister today. I have heard of young children sitting under the spirit of the age in schools. Coming home and telling their mom and dad I don't want to eat meat anymore. I don't want to kill any more animals to eat them anymore. What is that? Where does a six-year-old have a problem with eating chicken? It's because the spirit of the world that is beginning to worship creation instead of the Creator is influencing your children. Where does it come from? Man is, if you will allow me to use this term, seduced by the spirit of the age and he is conforming himself to it. You are walking according to kata, keeping with the standard of the spirit of the age. That's the lost man. Notice the second. force, the world, I take it to be an external force that is seducing us, that is seducing the world. I mean, you look at all the movements. You look at the whole green movement. I mean, I'm sure we're all for the environment. We all need to take care of the environment, but it's getting into this worship of the environment and Mother Earth. And we see it not just in America, but it's global. We see all these movements going on. And we begin back in the 80s and into the 70s. There was a really strong, especially in the church, conspiracy movements. Somebody's behind the scenes. I remember a lot of people pointed fingers to the Trilateral Commission. This group of men, they're dominating American politics, they're destroying our culture, they're moving, they're destroying Christianity and religion, and everybody was focusing at the Trilateral Commission. I don't even know if it exists or who it is, but you know what? It's even worse than the Trilateral Commission. It's worse than any flesh and blood could ever conspire. Paul says, the second thing, notice at the end of verse 2, according to the prince of the power of the air of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience. The prince, the ruler of the age is the one that is working in the world system So, men are living under a world system which they are being seduced by and being shaped by, and it is shaping their values. And that system is being shaped by, controlled by, the ruler of the air, which is Satan himself. There is no man-made conspiracy. There is a satanic conspiracy. That is what is controlling the spirit of the age. So when we talk about worldliness, we are in essence talking about Satanism because he is said to be the ruler of the air. Have you ever heard us talk about the, you know, there's just an excitement in the air. The word that Paul uses is air. He is the prince of the power of the air. There is in the air a satanic influence in the world. And men who think they are so free, think that they can choose God, think that they're not that bad, are not only seduced by the world, but we find in Scripture they are blinded by this satanic force. 2 Corinthians. The God of this age has blinded their eyes so that they cannot see the glory of Christ. Of this ruler, It says literally that he is energizing. See the word working? And there you go. Literally energizing the sons of disobedience. He is working. He is the spirit behind it. So we have, first of all, man is unwilling, pathetically unwilling to come and to be saved because of the influence of the world, which is that external influence, Secondly, he is unwilling because of the influence of the supernatural that is blinding his eyes so that he cannot see. But thirdly, we will see, which again is the most indicting against man and mankind, is that there is an internal force. Notice what Paul says in verse three. Among them, that is, the sons of disobedience. We, too, all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest. Man is dominated and enslaved by his own will, by the lusts of his flesh. He is busy, literally, the word indulging is doing. He is busy doing the things he wants to do. That is what the text says. So, when the Bible says that Man in his lost condition is dead in his trespasses and sins. What it means is he is so pathetically unwilling to come to Christ because what he is doing is the very things that he wants to do. He's enslaved to those desires in his thoughts. That's the word literally in the Greek. The thoughts, the things that come into his mind, he does. because He wants to do them. The partying, the drinking, the pursuing money, the doing all the worldly pleasure amusement things. He is wholesale giving Himself to them because He wants to. Man is enslaved to his will. And that's why when I hear people talking about free will, I just get cringes. Man is free, but let's understand what we mean by free. Man is free to do what he wants to do. The problem is he doesn't want to do what is right. And that's his problem. If man were left to his free will, the Bible says, he would be indulging the desires of his mind and his flesh. Enslaved to your desires. I want to feel good. I want to be successful. Literally doing what the flesh wants to do now, we can think for a moment, I don't want to spend a lot of time here because my time's running out. We always tend to think of flesh as evil, carnal desires, but the Bible even expands our understanding of the flesh. to include more than just evil carnal desires. The Bible speaks of flesh as a very proud entity that loves to attain righteousness through its own merits. Because we can find in the world people who are not just wholesale immoral people. They're kind of good people, kind of nice people. And yet, the Bible says they too are indulging the passions and the flesh and the desires of their mind. Because in their mind, they are thinking, I'm not that bad. I can do good. I can please God. And what you have is a flesh that says, God, I can come to You on my own terms. I don't care what You say about how bad I am. Philippians chapter 3. That's Paul's problem. The Bible says, look at that phrase, we were by nature. Children of wrath. Even as the rest, I want to close by making two points. This passage of scripture. Was not written to lost people. This passage of scripture was written to Christians so that they might know their dreadful condition before God saved them. I don't know what your family background is. I don't know. Some of you may have been homeschooled. Some of you have grown up in Christian schools. Some of you can say, well, I haven't done that bad. It does not matter what your history is. If you are a believer here today, the Bible says this characterizes your life before you were saved. You were enslaved, seduced by the world. You were blinded by Satan and you were unwilling and you were enslaved to your own desires. Now, by default, this applies to all lost people, but Paul isn't dealing with lost people in general. He points the finger and he says, and you were dead in your trespasses and sin. That is so important for us. Because the second point is found in verse four. In your dreadfully lost condition. Paul says. But God. I've heard it said before, I don't know who said it, but those two words are about the most important words in all the Bible. but God. You see, this Bible says in verse 4, even when you were pathetically unwilling to be saved, you were patently unable to be saved, and if left alone, you would die in your sins and be rightfully, justly condemned for all eternity. God lets you alone. But verse 4 says God intervened. God initiated. God, because of His richness and mercy and the greatness with which He loved you, God saved you. We'll never understand how glorious and wonderful and miraculous our salvation is until we come to grips with how utterly sinful we were before God reached down and saved us. Until you come to grips, you may have a misnotion in your mind that it was very nice of God to save me. And I am so thankful for my salvation, but I really wasn't that bad. And I was doing just fine, and I think I would have eventually trusted Christ and my Savior. I want to tell you, you're deceived because the Bible said if there weren't those two words, but God, you would be dead and lost in your transgressions. But God being rich in mercy, But God, loving you in a very special way, reaches down into the sea of humanity that has spurned Him, that is by nature wrath, and He says, I'm going to save this one. And I'm going to show mercy. And I'm going to pluck this one up. And I'm not going to treat them according to their sins. I'm going to be merciful to them. But, God, in the next weeks as we Go through Ephesians chapter 2. We're going to learn how gracious grace really is. How merciful mercy really is. And how loving love really is. God's love. And we're going to be exalted in our position of considering what God has done for us. And we're going to be humbled when we realize, as Paul says, we were in our lost condition even as the rest. When you look at that lost man and that lost woman, don't hold them in disdain, but look at them and say, but by the grace of God, there go I. That would have been me if it were not for two words, but God. Being rich in mercy and loving me with such great love, reach down and save me. Let's pray together. Oh God, we bow before you this morning. and we glory in this position that You have put us in. If You had not changed my will, I would still be a God-hater today. Oh, I would have liked the God of my own creation, the God as I defined Him and thought of Him, but I would not like You I would be enslaved to my own lusts and passions doing what I want to do. Lord, I pray that your people will worship and magnify your name as they consider their high calling from such a lowly, depraved state. Thank you. that you were rich in mercy and that you loved us with such a great love. We pray this in Christ's name. Amen.