Our scripture reading this evening is from the book of Ephesians, the epistle to the Ephesians. We read parts of chapter one and chapter two. Chapter one, the first 14 verses, Paul gives a glorious doxology that sets forth our salvation in Jesus Christ, election, adoption, redemption, and the pouring out of the Spirit. And then, after that, he turns to the Ephesians themselves and addresses them, thanking God for them and what follows. And we will read then beginning at verse 15 and read through chapter 2, verse 10. Ephesians 1 verse 15, wherefore I also, after I heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and love unto all the saints, cease not to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers, that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him, the eyes of your understanding being enlightened. that ye may know what is the hope of his calling, and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints. And what is the exceeding greatness of his power to usward who believe, according to the working of this mighty power, which he wrought in Christ, when he raised him from the dead, and set him at his own right hand in the heavenly places, far above all principality and power and might and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come. and hath put all things under his feet, and gave him to be the head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him that filleth all in all. And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins, Wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience, among whom also we all had our conversation in times past, in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others. But God who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ. By grace ye are saved, and hath raised us up together and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. That in the ages to come, he might show the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus. For by grace are ye saved through faith. And that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. For we are his workmanship. created in Christ Jesus unto good works which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them. So far we read God's holy word. The text for the sermon are the first three verses of chapter two. And you hath he quickened who were dead in trespasses and sins And while you have your Bible out, I would have you notice that the half he quickened is in italics. We'll talk about that in a moment. So we'd leave that out. It would be something like, and you who were dead in trespasses and sins. Verse two, wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience, among whom also we all had our conversation in times past, in the lust of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others. Beloved in the Lord Jesus Christ, the text we consider tonight is connected to the previous chapter with the word and, and you. In the last section of chapter one, which we read, Paul showed the greatness of the power of God. the greatness of the power that's what he said he wanted them to know verse 19 and what is the exceeding greatness of his power to us word who believe to us word the exceeding great power of God on us that's what he wants them to know and that power then he begins to demonstrate by saying that power which operates on you is a power which is evident when he raised Jesus from the dead and set him down at his own right hand and exalted him over all things, over principalities and powers and dominions, over every name that is named, and then even made him to be the head over all things with regard to the church. There's the demonstration of the power of God. Chapter two then begins, and you, that is to say, that's the power that operates on you, the same power that raised Jesus from the dead, exalted him, that power, God works. upon you. How does God do that? By quickening you. By quickening you. The power of God that raised Jesus from the dead and exalted Him to God's right hand is the same power that quickens God's people. At least, that's what the apostle will write. That power quickens you. But that is something he really doesn't get to until verse five. Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ. That's where he finally gets to the idea of quickening. And that's why I pointed out in the King James, the words hath he quickened in verse one are italicized, which means the translators added those words, they're not in the original Greek, they added those words for the sake of us English-speaking people so that the text would make sense to us. But you have to understand that that's not what Paul wrote. And so let's try to get the sense of that. Chapter 2, verse 1 would be something like this then, if I would give it literally. And you, and then kind of a pause, being dead in your trespasses, that word should be added, being dead in your trespasses and sins, and then he will go on to develop that, what that means. And then finally, we'll talk about how being dead in sin, God, then raised us from the dead. Why does he do that? Why does he dwell in these three verses on the deadness, our spiritual deadness? And the answer is that we might then know even more the greatness of the power of God. That's what he wants us to grasp. That's what he said in verse 19 of the previous chapter. I want you to know what is the exceeding greatness of his power to us were to believe. And we will see that in the way of having our own lowliness, our own helplessness, our own depravity set before us and being convicted of that. And then to see God saved us out of that by his mighty power. The power of God by which he blesses us already in chapter one in spiritual places, in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. But the glory of God will radiate before our eyes even more brightly if we see from what God has lifted us up and blessed us. When David, for example, took his son Solomon and made him to be king, and he was a glorious king, well, that's quite something. And yet everybody said, well, that's what we expected. He's the king's son after all. But now think of Joseph. Joseph down in the depths of a dungeon, lifted up and made to be the second in command of the whole of the Egyptian nation. From a dungeon to ruler of the land. What a tremendous transformation. That's exactly what Paul wants us to see. So he will set forth before us then what we were, what we came out of, and then magnify the greatness of God that saved us. So tonight we look at that first part with the view, the Lord's willing, next Sunday, to looking at the quickening power of God. But today, we focus on our natural depravity. And that's the theme for the sermon, then, naturally dead in sin, naturally dead in sin. Notice in the first place, the hopeless condition. Second, the total depravity, the vile depravity, rather, the vile depravity. And finally, the dreadful consequences. Our hopeless condition was dead in trespasses and sins. That's how these verses start out. You being dead in your trespasses and sins. Dead. Death is the very opposite of life. Life is activity. A man who has life, they check his brain to see if there's any activity, if he's just lying there. Ordinary, there's activity in the brain. There's activity in his body if he is alive. Life is fun and laughter. Life is health and strength. It's light and joy. Life is fellowship. Life is working. Life is playing. Life is experiencing pleasant things like listening to the birds sing, or seeing the glory of the sunrise, or smelling flowers, or eating delicious food with the family or with friends. That's life. It's activity. It's joy. That's earthly life. Now you take that up to a higher level of spiritual life, And that is life of knowing God, of enjoying God, of being able to fellowship with God, of being able to experience the pleasant things, the blessings that God gives to his creatures in whom he delights, serving him. Adam had life in the garden. He had life with God. as well as Eve, but you were dead. Death is darkness and corruption. Death is the absence of all activity. There's no speaking in death. There's no listening, there's no thinking, there's no desiring, there's no joy in death, no light. There's no enjoyment of beauty. There is no enjoyment of friendship or love or giving or receiving. Spiritual death, that's earthly death. Spiritual death, is separation from God's love and favor and His fellowship. And instead of enjoying love and fellowship and favor of God, death is being under the terrifying wrath of God the wrath of God that pushes away, the wrath of God that casts into outer darkness, the wrath of God that will not allow a single moment of joy, only sorrow, only pain, that's death, spiritual death, being the objects of God's wrath. afflicted in body and soul with endless torments and sorrows. You were dead. That is our natural condition. What does that mean? If you would say this to most people in the world, they would violently object. They do not believe that they are dead. They experience life. They experience pleasant things in this life. They experience some earthly happiness, they do. They have a life that is seeking to fulfill all the desires of their mind and of their flesh. They're trying to be happy and at times they are somewhat happy. and they are wringing out everything they can possibly find in this life to have joy, to have happiness, they would very definitely say, I'm not dead, I have life. But Paul says, no, your natural condition is dead, death. He says this to believers. And therefore to the rest of the world, they are still dead. If you're not a believer, you are dead. That's his message here. Dead in trespasses and sins. Now what is that? Trespass is literally to fall by the side of. to fall on the wrong side of something. And what that is saying is the law of God is something that makes a boundary. It marks out a spot. It's not a dinky spot, it's a large spot. Within the boundaries of that law, there is joy, there is life, there is fellowship with God. But if a person goes on the other side, if he falls on the other side of the line, there is only death. There is not life anymore. There's not fellowship with God. It is rather death. That's the consequence of trespassing. You go on the wrong side of the line. You fall there and you experience not life, but death. Sin is the very common word for sin in the Bible, which means to miss the mark. And it reminds us that when God created man, he aimed him at the mark of God's glory. Aim with all of your mind, with all of your being, every thought, word, emotion, aim it toward the glory of God. That's why you exist. You'll find joy there if you aim yourself to that. You will find joy. You'll find happiness, peace. But man sinned, and sin is missing the mark. Sin is missing the mark, not in the sense that one aims a little left or a little bit right, but that a person says, that I will not aim for. I will aim in the opposite direction, away from the glory of God, toward my own, my glory, my purpose, whatever I want. That is sin. It's deliberate, it's willful transgression. Paul says we are dead, and you could really translate it, and you being dead by your transgressions and sins, by them. And when the word your there emphasizes responsibility, not somebody else's fault, so to speak, your transgressions, your sins, you are dead by your transgressions and sins. Now, that includes, of course, the sin of Adam, and that's ours as well. because Adam was created the first father. He is the representative head of the whole human race. And when Adam sinned against God, he sinned as the head and the guilt of Adam becomes the guilt of the whole race. We're all born guilty. And because we're born guilty, we deserve the punishment And the punishment for breaking God's law is death. All you children know that. You know what God said to Adam in the Garden of Eden? In the day that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die. That's the punishment, death. We are born with that punishment on us because we have the guilt of Adam upon us. That's my sin, that's your sin, the sin that Adam committed. And so we are born dead. Physically, death is in us. No matter how lively that little baby may be, no matter how lively that two-year-old may seem running around the house, there's death in that child. There's death in the very cells. That child will not live forever. It will come out in sickness and in all the other troubles that come upon a human body, but that body will die. He has death in him at birth. But far more serious is the spiritual death. He is born dead in sin, corrupt, depraved, spiritually dead, alienated from God. by Adam's sin, and then there are our own actual sins. Every sin adds another death sentence to us. The wages of sin is death. And if you can imagine it, that a man, terrible, wicked man, kills 40 people, and he has tried, and he is found guilty of every single one of those murders. And in the trial, the judge would read the charge and would say, concerning the charge of the murder of individual A, guilty. And the sentence, death. Concerning the charge of murdering individual B, guilty, and the punishment death. And so through all of the 40, guilty, and the punishment is death. That's what it's like for us. Every sin that we commit is like God could say to us, guilty, and the punishment is death. It just adds one death sentence upon another, upon another. Dead because of your transgressions and sins. We were dead. No activity. That is, no spiritual life. Man has a natural life by which he is able to eat and drink and play and work, study, but he is doomed to death. His diseases, cancer and heart attacks and all the other things that he has are indicating that you are under the sentence of death. but he has no life with God. He does not have a true knowledge of God. Anything that he sees in the creation, he denies, he rejects, says there is no God, refuses to serve him, and he therefore has absolutely no experience of joy with God, only wrath. No enjoyment of what is truly beautiful. Philippians 4 verse 8 says to us, Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report, if there be any virtue, if there be any praise, think on these things. Those are the things of God. Those are the things of life with God. Those are the things of the covenant and of heaven itself. But those who are dead, Have no joy there. And their death means, from a spiritual point of view, that's all they can do is sin. That's all they can do is sin. Increase the wages. Increase the judgment. Another death sentence. Man says, I'm living. I can choose. I can do as I please. But the reality is he can only choose another kind of death. He cannot choose life. He cannot choose joy. He only can choose to sin, which means death. Clearly, that's a hopeless condition. to be dead, even from a physical point of view. When someone is in the hospital that we love, and there's medicines, and there's perhaps surgeries, and as long as there's life, there's hope. But when that last breath is breathed, then there isn't any hope anymore. It's over. We can't fellowship with that individual. That individual will not enjoy life with us. It is hopeless. Spiritual death is the same. There's no hope. There's no possibility of saving oneself. There's no possibility, no strength to help oneself. One cannot, when he is spiritually dead, cry out to God for help. He can't do that. He is spiritually dead. He cannot even want to be helped. He doesn't even have that. A dead man can do nothing. Paul says, that's your natural condition. You being dead in trespasses, your trespasses and sins. but it gets worse. Because the activity that we can do with our natural life is an activity in which we are slaves of sin. The text says, wherein in those sins, wherein in times past ye walked, ye walked according to those trespasses and sins. It's not merely that you died and all activity stopped so that you didn't continue to sin any longer. No, dead in sin though you were, you walked in those sins. You continued in them. You willed to do them. There are two phrases that emphasize this in the second verse. The first one says, you walked according to the course of this world, according to the course of this world, the world of ungodly men. It looks at the world as a whole, as one united living thing where it's totally devoted to its opposition to God. The world of men, the world that hates God, the world that hates his law, that hates his life, that loves iniquity, that loves sin. That's the world. And then in that phrase, according to the course of this world. You walked according to the course of this world. The word course there is literally the age. According to the age of this world. And that points to the fact that there's in this world, united in its opposition to God, in that world there is always a development of sin. A development. We speak of the age in which we now live. We talk about it that way. What's life like right now? The age now compared to, if we have lived a long time, look back 50 years, how different it was, the age of this world. Every age has a certain character and a certain development of sin. And everyone, every human being, lives in that world, surrounded by the character of that world, and is influenced by it. Has to live in that world and act and react with the people that are around him. Now God calls His people to live antithetically toward the sinfulness of this world. And as that sin develops, you can see that the work of the church is constantly to be saying no to every new development of sin. And Paul says, you walked according to the age of the world. You didn't live antithetical to it. You were not born into this world opposing evil, standing antithetical to it. You walked according to the age of this world. And then, if that isn't bad enough, according to the prince of the power of the air. Now that's the devil. That's the devil. The prince of the power of the air. In the air or of the air emphasizes that his domain is here. It's not heaven. It's the air is what surrounds the earth and his domain is this world. It's the world of men where Satan operates. Later on in the book, Ephesians, Paul writes of the battle that we have as God's people. In chapter six, verse 12, we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. That's the devil. That's his host of millions of angels, devils that we're fighting. Jesus said about the devil, he's the prince of this world. He's the prince of this world. He has Power, he's the prince of the power of the air, literally authority. He has authority, legitimate authority over the ungodly of this world because when man sinned and chose against God and for the devil, God's judgment was, you want the devil? The devil you will have. I will put you under his authority. He will rule you. The prince of the power of the air, you walked according to the prince of the power of the air. The spirit that now works in the children of disobedience. He's a spirit. He works on the children of disobedience. He directs their minds and their thoughts. He uses philosophies. He uses the internet. He uses the entertainment of the world. He uses the news media. He uses the governments to direct the minds of men toward iniquity. And they gladly do it. They are slaves. He drives men to do what he wants, and what he wants is them to sin. Use whatever you have at your capacity in your hands. Use it to sin and sin and sin some more until finally he drags them down to death and to hell. That's the prince of the power of this world, says Paul. That's you and me. That's what we are by nature, willing slaves of sin, ruled by Him, agreeable to it, not even realizing the wretched condition where He's directing us, why we are so miserable, like a drunkard. like a drunkard who is at a party and he thinks he's having a great time, and he thinks he's funny, and he thinks he's smart, and he thinks he's having a great life, and everybody looks at him and says, you are a fool. You are not funny, you are not smart, you are stupid, and you're killing yourself. Those who are in this hopeless condition cannot escape. They don't even want to try to escape. Paul says, that's our natural condition. You being dead in your trespasses and sins. But now he describes further the vile depravity, the vile depravity, and we could say three things about the vile depravity that Paul expresses in these verses. In the first place, that depravity is rightly described as total, total depravity. It's not that There are only some who are like this. No, this is a universal condition of man. Paul does not exclude anyone. Notice the pronoun that he uses in the King James. You can distinguish between the singular and the plural. The and thou, that's one person. You and your and ye. That's all plural. So Paul writes to the church of Ephesus, to the saints of Ephesus, he writes to the saints here in Byron Center, and he says, you, you, all of you, all of us. And then he strengthens that in verse three when he says, among whom also we all had our conversation, every single one of us, all men, are born dead in trespasses and sins. That's total depravity. Paul shows us something of the extent of our wickedness. We walked in it. We walked in it. But he goes deeper. It's not merely that we walked in it and we did some things that were wrong. That's bad enough. But what he says is, it comes out of the corruption in us. The walk, according to the course of this world, the walk according to the spirit that now works in the children of disobedience, that came out of our own corruption. That's what he brings out. because he speaks of the fact that we had our conversation in times past in the lusts of the flesh. Now we're going inside. Now we're looking at desires. Lusts. Strong, strong desires. Something you say, I must have it. I must have that. It burns hot. to obtain something. What is it that the flesh, because it's the lust of the flesh, what is it that the flesh lusts after? Paul wrote to Titus about that. In Titus 3.3, Paul said, for we ourselves also were sometimes foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving divers, lusts, and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful and hating one another. And elsewhere scripture speaks of the lusts of the flesh as being things like fornication, murder, lies, everything contrary to the word of God. That's the lusts of the flesh. Paul says, Not only do we live according to the lust of the flesh, but we were fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, fulfilling them. Sins that a body can commit, sins that the mind is prone to commit, desire, the lifestyle of the children of disobedience, every kind of iniquity. desiring it, lusting, and then fulfilling it. Now that shouldn't surprise us, of course, that that's what's in the heart of man, because God said that long ago in Genesis chapter six, when he had created man good and man fell, and then sin developed into this horrible volcano of iniquity. And God said in Genesis six, verse five, God saw that every imagination of the thoughts of man's heart was only evil continually. Every imagination of the thoughts of his heart, every imagination was only evil continually, unceasingly. Natural depravity is total. It's total. It's not that in a man who is dead in sin that it's like a bushel of apples and every one of the apples in it has a spot on it, a rotten spot on it, but it is that every apple in the bushel is rotten to the core. That's total depravity. Full of evil lusts. fulfilling those lusts of the flesh and of the mind. That's total depravity. That, first of all. Secondly, this depravity is active. It's active. We had our friends, says Paul, our conversation, our friends among the children of disobedience. Now all parents know the tremendous influence for good or for bad that friends have on our children. We know that. How much influence they have, how they can lead even children that we never had any problem with, lead them in bad ways. It says, Paul, well, that's what we had. Our conversation was among them, the children of disobedience, the children who are hardened in their unbelief and their rebellion. That's where we were living in sin, fulfilling the desires that whatever came to the mind, fulfilling whatever desire the body had, both of them. So it's a total depravity. It's an active, developing depravity. And that means, in the third place, that the natural man is as bad as he can be. Again, the text emphasizes that when it says, according to the age of this world, according to the age of the world, in certain times sin can be somewhat restrained. Because a government maybe is holding down some of the depravity of man. Maybe there are other reasons why a person would not do anything he possibly could. He might not kill his neighbor because he knows that will put him in jail. He doesn't want to go to jail. He wants to earn money. He may be nice to his neighbor because he's hoping that he can gain power in this world. So there are things that restrain some of his depravity. But the reality is, when these things are removed, then you see what's in the heart of man. Read a book on war. When the soldiers go off to war and there are no governments and there is no family and there's no influence from the neighbors and I can do what I want, then you see what's in the heart of man. horrible depravity. He's as bad as he can be. In that situation, as sin has developed, there's more sin possibility now than there was a hundred years ago in America. And you see how that is now bringing out the depravity of man's heart. Living according to the age of the world, whatever is acceptable, whatever sins you can get away with in that age, That's what man does. But now, what Paul wants you and me to recognize is that we're not better. We not only had our conversation, we all, says Paul, including himself, we all had our conversation in times past there, Then he adds at the end of three, we were not by nature the children of wrath, even as others. And that's a fine translation, but it's a little more literal like this, even as the rest. That's my last hope that I'm better. We like to make ourselves and others think that we are better. We can put on a show of piety. And we can exalt over the fact that we're not murderers. We're not rapists. We're not drug dealers. We're not any of those horrible, horrible, horrible sinners. We are definitely superior to them. And Paul strips all of our hypocrisy away and he says, no, you have to understand, you are just like the rest. Don't put yourself above. You're just like the rest. The Heidelberg Catechism says that's exactly right. We are still prone by nature not only to hate God and the neighbor, but to every evil. Every evil. This is the truth of total depravity. It's total, it's active, and man is as bad as he can be in that situation in his life, in that time of the world. This, of course, This is a truth that's embedded in our history as churches, particularly in our rejection of common grace, because common grace denies total depravity. And the second point of common grace, as it was adopted by our mother church, the second point of common grace teaches that the Holy Spirit, without renewing a person to faith, without giving them life of regeneration, yet restrains graciously that sinner so that he is not as bad as he would otherwise be. He's not as bad. He has a restraint of sin. Now, there is no doubt about it that the Holy Spirit is sovereign. and that he controls, yes, also the sinful lives of men. In fact, the Belgic Confession says that the devil himself is bridled. He has a bridle on him so that God can turn him, that God can pull him back, that God can let him go. God is in control. And that's true of every wicked person in this world as well. He is absolutely under the sovereign control of God, but that's in God's providence, not his grace. Huge difference. This is not because God is gracious to them, but it's because he will restrain them to protect his church. And the third point of common grace is that unregenerate man can do good. He's not regenerated, but he can do civil good because he has common grace. Good even that God approves. People of God, where is that? Where is this good in the text that we are considering tonight? This is what man is. There isn't good there. There isn't something that's graciously holding him back from being as bad as he could be. It's not here. This is the description of natural man. Not the three points of common grace. That denies the truth of these verses. Man is dead. And there are dreadful consequences. Verse 3 says, we were by nature the children of wrath. To be a child of wrath means that you are the object of God's wrath. And God's wrath is His holiness breaking out against sin. In our natural condition, we are the objects of that wrath at conception, at birth, through our life. Again, according to our natural condition, we are the objects of God's wrath, children of wrath. Apart from God's grace, that's all men ever experience. Every and all men, women, and children, they get up in the morning, they live God's wrath, they eat God's wrath, they sleep God's wrath, they play, they work, no matter what. It's under the wrath of God, that terrifying wrath of God that pushes away, that ultimately casts into outer darkness. God's wrath. Is this true of us? You who were, is the way the text put it. Again, I've translated a little bit differently. It said more literally, you being dead in trespasses and sins. Now, there has been, of course, a controversy. about this matter of total depravity. I've explained it before, but let me remind you that if a person who is regenerated, you and I, regenerated Christians, is asked the question, are you totally depraved? No matter if you answer yes or no, you have to explain it more. I believe you could answer it either way, as long as you explain your explanation that follows is correct. If you say, yes, I am totally depraved. I'm a believer, but I'm totally depraved. You immediately have to add, but I'm not dead in sin. I'm not dead. I have a life in me. I have a life from God, which is eternal, which cannot die. So even though if you want to speak of yourself as totally depraved, you have to add immediately, but I'm not dead. On the other hand, you may choose to say to the question, are you totally depraved? No. But then you must immediately add, but I have a nature that still is. I have a nature that is corrupt and vile and will never get any better all my life long. I'll be battling that nature. I agree with the Apostle Paul in Romans chapter 7, in me that is in my flesh dwelleth no good thing. We were dead in sin. We are not dead in sin any longer. God has given us life, a holy life, but we still have that wretched nature. We still sing, don't we, I am evil, born in sin. We still sing that. That's what we must see this week in a week of self-examination. We must see that nature. We must see that wretched, horrible nature that is the fountain of every evil in our thoughts and words and in our life. We don't blame other people. It's coming out of us, coming out of our own lusts, our own wicked nature. We have to see that and see how guilty we are before God, what an offense it is. And by the power of God's grace, hate that sin, flee from the sin, repent of the sin, confess it before God. That's what a week of self-examination, that's how it starts, seeing our own depravity, seeing our own wretched sins, turning, forsaking. Is there any hope? Pretty dismal picture I painted tonight. Well, there isn't any hope in you and there isn't any hope in me. We can't save ourselves. We can't do some kind of mighty thing that will get us out of this. As we are by nature, we are still running away from God, opposed to him, hating God, loving the lusts of our flesh. But in God, there is everlasting hope. The one who is so powerful that he could lift up Jesus out of the grave, out of death and translate him into heavenly glory and sit him down at God's right hand and give him power over everything over all principalities and powers and dominions and every name that is named that power that raised up Jesus and gave him that glory that power is able to save you from your natural condition. Absolutely. And in fact, he did. He has saved you through Jesus Christ, through his paying the redemption for our horrible sins, our guilt, and then powerfully delivering us from the bondage by that quickening. That will be next week, that quickening power of God, that glorious work of God. The theme for the first 10 verses of Ephesians 2 is very definitely salvation is all of God. But that starts with the doctrine of total depravity. Because only those who recognize their natural condition as being dead in sin will be able to say, truly, salvation had to be all of God, because I, I was dead. And so we give thanks to Him because of His glorious salvation. Amen. Let us pray. Father in heaven, we give thanks to thee for thy amazing love for those who are so spiritually ugly and of no value whatsoever and worthy only to be cast away into eternal suffering and darkness. And yet thou hast loved us. and Thou hast redeemed us, and Thou hast given us life. Lord, make us to see what we truly are apart from Thy grace, to confess our wretchedness, and then, by the power of that same grace, to turn, turn away, and to turn to Thee, and to enjoy life with Thee. That's our joy. Hear us, we pray, for Jesus' sake. Amen. We sing Psalter number 364. This is entitled, Penitence and Hope. Penitence, confessing our sins, but then the hope that we have in God. We sing stanzas one, two, and four. One, two, and four of 364. leading me, have mercy on me. When, like my feet, I still appear, O Lord, you send me just always be near, where he is with me. Lord, place your hope now in the Lord. His mercy well and life reward. in yonder heavenly height. And bless the Lord, he saves me not, who in his grace be mine. I, all his creatures, The Lord bless thee and keep thee. The Lord make his face to shine upon thee and be gracious unto thee. The Lord lift up his countenance upon thee and give thee peace. Amen.