We're gonna get started and we're gonna finish up our our last Last few points in chapter 6 which is speaking about the fall of man and We're going to revisit part four, so we get the flow of where we're at. We realize that all actual transgressions proceed from the original corruption. Romans 8, 7 says, because the carnal mind is at enmity against God, for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. As we talked about last week, that word enmity is stronger than just being enemies. Men hate God and do not want God. They don't want God in their thinking. They don't want God in their laws. They don't want God in anything of society which they create. And while we may see things like America coming to form, eventually the people fall away from that because they love darkness rather than light. Why is it that on basically every college campus, you can have people who have been Christians, who have lived the quote unquote Christian life, who have conformed themselves to the word of God, who have structured their lives after what God has decreed and what God has said, all of their lives. And yet when they get on college campus, They can either completely go buck wild and lose their minds. They, I mean, I'm an atheist, I'm an agnostic, I hate God, blah, blah, blah. Everything. Partying, drinking, drugs, you know, Brandon, you're talking about your buddy there. I mean, that was so tragic, I actually started praying for him. You know, just out of the blue, hey, I wanna start doing drugs. Why? Because you've got this freedom, right? But then there's the other end of the spectrum. Those people that believe in Christ, and yet they want to live like everybody else. They don't want to be ridiculed by anybody else. And what do they do? They set aside Christ. They're ashamed of the gospel. They're ashamed of the truth. They're ashamed of the Word of God. They don't want everybody to think badly of them. They don't want their professors or their newfound friends to ridicule them because they dare stand on the truth. And we're going to talk about the truth this afternoon. We're going to talk about it in depth. But I want you to think. The carnal mind is at enmity against God and wants nothing to do with God. And this proceeds from the original corruption in sin. This has been the way of the world. But the problem is, and the reason this escalates, is because Christians stop behaving as Christians. We set aside what we know to be truth for the convenience and the comfort of the community. We want the people not to be offended, so we would rather offend God. We live in an age that hates God. Openly not just secretly in the heart because you don't want everybody to be offended the people have believed in Jesus Christ and people have lived for Christ in Christianity in America to some extent The this country was founded Despite what Barack Obama says this country was founded upon the gospel of Jesus Christ on the Word of God on the laws of God The evidence is in law and what we teach and proclaim from the Constitution to the Bill of Rights and everything in between. And we see that men and women throughout every generation have said there needs to be a standard, there needs to be a law, there needs to be truth, and we've looked to God and His Word for that standard, for the absolute standard of truth. But because the heart of man does not change just because the law of man is conformed to the Word of God, men seek any way they can to corrupt the law. They want to change the law. We saw that in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John and everybody in the Old Testament, didn't we? That the Pharisees and the Sadducees, what did they do? They corrupted the law. They couldn't live up to it. They didn't like it. They despised the word of God. They despised the law of God. And what did they do? They made their own religion. Because their natural, carnal minds are at enmity against God. We see what God says. We hear what God says. And we would rather have man's law than God's law. We would rather have oppression than freedom in Christ. Colossians 121. And you that were sometimes alienated, and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now he is reconciled. You see, the point being is that our hearts are wicked and dark, and we, like every man, has gone astray. We all seek after self and humanism. We seek after the easiest way out. Because that's our nature. That is our nature. Now, here's where we're at today. By which we are utterly indisposed, disabled, and made opposite to all good. That statement right there would cause the vast majority of believing Christians, or professing Christians, to say, I disagree. Because when you say we are utterly indisposed, Disabled and made opposite to all good and wholly inclined to all evil. There's a doctrine that Calvinists talk about. Do you guys remember what it's called? T? Total depravity. Listen to what it says. We believe that every man is totally depraved. And what that means is he has no goodness in him. God steps down on earth to judge the earth in the book of Genesis and he looked around and he said that the thoughts and intentions of the heart are evil always that their hearts were inclined to evil they were predisposed to evil they they did not have good in them and what you'll hear from the the Pelagian who the semi Pelagian and the Armenian I believe you have to really realize that when we're talking about Armenians today, most people that hold to Armenian doctrine are actually Pelagian. They just think they're Armenian. Because, see, this is one area that Arminius disagreed with Pelagius about. He said that we are sinful. Well, Pelagius said we're basically good. That we're good people and we're neutral. When it comes to sin that the sin doesn't actually become a part of us. OK, and Arminius says, well, no, we're sinful. We have a sinful nature, but there's a spark of good in us. We're not totally dead and trespassing sin. And see, according to what we're teaching, what we believe, what the Bible says, that our hearts are deceitful above all things and desperately wicked who can know it. We are, we have stone dead hearts. We are incapable of doing that which is good. We are made good through Adam, or before the fall. And then from the fall onward, we are utterly indisposed to evil. We are disabled from good. We're made opposite to all good. Now think what that says. We're wholly inclined to all evil. As we just talked about, God looks at Noah and around the world and says, their entire thought, intention of the heart, everything about them is evil and wickedness. Jeremiah tells us that our hearts are deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. Who can know it? Romans 3 tells us that there's none of us that does good. No, not one. That we are all deceitful. We are all wicked. We've all gone astray. The Bible tells us we are dead in our trespass and sin. That we have a stone-dead heart that is incapable of doing good. Now, what does it mean to do good? So that our Arminian brother would not be able to wrestle or pull his way out of it and say, well, you're telling me I can't do any good at all? What does it mean to do good? To do good is what Jesus Christ did. To do good means to do what is right and holy in the sight of God. To be a good person means someone who is... I mean, you can look it up. Webster's Dictionary and every commentary that there is, that a good person is one who is morally good and thoughtward indeed. So to do good or to pursue good means that you must live and pursue holiness, goodness, righteousness, purity, and truth without any of the opposite nature of good. The problem is we are absolutely inclined to do that which is sinful and wicked. James 1, 14 to 15, I'll read that one and somebody want to pick up Matthew 15, 19. James 1, 14 through 15 says, but every man is tempted when he is drawn away of his own lust. Now remember we talked about that idea of the temptation. That temptation comes because of what's in our hearts. God may send the trial, God may send the test, And it becomes a temptation when we give in to the test. It becomes a sin in our hearts because it's what's in our heart to do. It becomes a trial, a test that becomes a trial when we pass that test and it builds us up because God doesn't tempt us. He will test us to build us and encourage us. Now listen to this. Then when lust has conceived, it brings forth sin and sin, when it is finished, brings forth death. It's all a matter of our own hearts. You think about this. In our introduction, that college student walks into campus, and maybe he or she is an actual Christian. They walk into the campus, You know, anywhere USA, anywhere university, they walk in and they find friends, people that they want to hang out with, people that they like, people that they want to impress. And how do they react? Well, I'm a strong biblical Christian. They walk in and tell everybody, look, here's the gospel, and you need to repent and believe the gospel. You need to come to Christ. You need to know Christ as your Savior and Lord. Is that what they usually do? Well, no. Because why? They want the people to accept them. So they figure out what the people are doing, what they're saying, their actions and their attitudes, and how do they react. Quite often they'll lay aside the gospel for the opportunity to fit in with the crowd. That happens at work. That happens at church. That happens at community events. That happens at parties. That happens in everyday life. I gave you one example of a college community because that's the biggest community around where you have the biggest grouping of people together. But think about it. It happens everywhere. We go into a coffee shop last night and gave a gospel track to a man who was having a really rough few minutes. We were sitting in the drive-thru, and the person in front of us, apparently the man at the window, got into an argument with her of some form, and pulled up, and he was apologizing and everything else, and I gave him a gospel track, and I just said, hey, look, this'll be the biggest tip you'll ever get, and it's just something maybe to encourage you. His reaction was that he came out and he wanted to hug everybody and threw flowers up in the air and he was just so happy. No, it wasn't. He basically exploded in about two seconds. Well, you know what, you can contact my pastor and you can talk to him and he'll tell you why these things are trash and you shouldn't use them. And have a good day. And he just stopped talking altogether. So, having that as the reaction, Many Christians will say, I'll never witness again. I had a bad experience. I don't want somebody to reject me, so I'm not gonna proclaim the truth that I know. I don't want somebody to get upset. So I'm not gonna proclaim this as dogmatic truth and tell people this is the truth, and I love you enough to tell you the truth. They'll lay it aside because we, Christian, have hearts that can give into temptation, the temptation to compromise, the temptation to capitulate, the temptation to walk away from the truth that we know. Matthew 15, 19 says, For out of the heart proceeds evil thoughts and murders, adulteries, fornications, theft, false witness, and blasphemies. We think about The utter depravity of the world, and we look at ISIS. We look at rape cults that are running around Germany right now, and England, and Sweden, and they're running around raping women left and right, left and right. You know what the worst of all darkness is? It's ecclesiastical darkness. False witness. To not bear the truth Out of all those things, if we don't bear the truth, we are giving everyone else a free pass to not bear the truth themselves, to not know the truth, to not hear the truth. What we are doing is we're telling those evil people that what they're doing is okay. The next part is that during this life, the corruption of nature remains in those who are regenerated. See now, as we talked about just a minute ago, We see that the world lives in darkness, but the corrupt nature of man even lives in these dead bodies, the dead body of the regenerate. Romans 7, 18. And for I know that in me dwells no good thing. For to will is present with me, but how to perform that which is good I find not. That was Paul. You know, there are people that want to preach and teach that that was before his conversion. He was talking about before conversion. There are pastors that talk about sinless perfectionism, and there was a pastor we used to sit under at a large church in the Tennessee area. I won't say the name of the church. It was down one of these avenues over here. He actually taught that Romans 7, 18, those were all talking about before he was saved. And that is very popular, why? Because they don't want to, many Christians, many pastors don't want to acknowledge the fact that the people in their church are wicked sinners saved by a holy God. That's why pastors don't want to deal with divorce. and gossip and church discipline things and and all these things, because if they do, then they have to acknowledge that every person in front of them is a wicked center needs to be corrected, needs to be guided, needs to be nurtured, needs to be loved, needs to be disciplined. Everyone. What is the pastor's job? What is the elders jobs? What's your job? The pastors, one of the pastor's responsibilities. Is. is to be now listen to me a surrogate parent. Now Gary you're a couple years older than me but as the pastor in every church and I don't care how old the pastor is and you need to realize this every person in the church needs to realize this. OK. As the pastor the pastor is the under shepherd for the great shepherd. He is responsible to parent you as a surrogate parent. He's not just to be your best friend. He's supposed to be the one that tells you the truth, that guides you in the truth, the one that demands that you listen and obey. Why? Because you're required to listen and obey God. And God has put this pastor or this group of elders or whatever, in your stead, or in his stead, taking his place, representing him to teach you and to guide you and to nurture you. So if you have a 70, 80, 90 year old woman, or a man, and the pastor is 20 or 30 or 40 years old, While there's a respect for eldership and elders and while there's respect for that age and that wisdom of the person the greater respect needs to be given to that pastor and that elder who's teaching well and preaching and doing well. Now listen to that. Here in Romans 7 18. We are being taught that even this man of God is a sinner and he needs to look at himself and others as what. Sinners, capable of sin, therefore responsible and accountable to one another. We need to be people that we don't say, how dare you ask me that question? How dare you say this? Hey, Gary, did you quit beating your wife yet? No. By the way, that's a no-way-out situation there. That's a no-way-out situation there. But listen to Ecclesiastes 720. Who wants to read that? Ecclesiastes 720. There is not a just man upon the earth. In other words, Standing before holy God, God says you're unjust, you're not good, you are wicked, you are guilty, and you are going to be judged by me, who is just, and you will receive my wrath. Why? Because you sin, you do not do good. That is not taught in church, because we think we're good people. And we don't teach that to our friends, we don't teach that to the people that are around us, because we want everybody to think, kumbaya, we're all good, we're all going to heaven, everybody's happy. 1 John 1.8. You know, I think the Bible is abundantly clear that we are sinners, even if you're saved, you're a sinner saved by grace, you're not sanctified yet. Or let me say, you're not glorified yet, you're being sanctified, you're not glorified yet. OK, being sanctified means to be brought along in the process of purifying your wicked soul. It's not something that happens immediately. In fact, it doesn't happen until we get to heaven where God gives us a glorified body. What does sanctification have to do with Brandon? We think. OK so it's a spiritual matter. Right. We agree with that. It's just it's a spiritual matter. See sanctification doesn't have to do with this physical dead body. You're going to die. Exactly. We get a glorified body in heaven the Bible says right. God does something to translate us out of this world and translate our dead bodies back into union with our living spirit at some point in time. Now think about this. That would be, by the way, for the Christians, that'd be the rapture. We're taken up. At some point in time, the Lord joins us with a glorified body. Now, the Bible tells us that this is a matter of sanctification. God's not so concerned with our fleshly bodies and we must contend with our own passions, our own lusts, our own desires, our own temptations, our own willingness to compromise. You know, I'm gonna tell you guys this later on, but I have been told many times about how I need to compromise. I need to not teach this so dogmatically. I need to not willing to give in to what everybody else's opinion is. See, the problem is if you know the truth, what good does it do to compromise? If you know the truth, how is compromise ever a good thing? I mean, if you have biblical. You know. Truth, if you have the truth of God, if you have the very word of God and you know the truth. Why should you ever compromise? Should you? Should you give into the whims of the people and I will tell you why compromise happens? Well, Pastor, you're stepping on people's toes today. I don't think you should be preaching that so hard. I've been told that so many times. I actually had a, I'm gonna say this later, but I'm gonna say it again now. I actually had a deacon run up to the pulpit I was standing at preaching, jumped up on top of the stand on the podium, grabbed my arm, pulls back his fist, and he was ready to punch me in the face. Because I dared to preach fundamental truth. Foundational, doctrinal truth. He says, what about my son? You're saying that he's not going to get saved? I said, how will they hear unless you go? Have you ever actually shared the gospel with him? That's too much. You're pushing me on him. You're saying that I need to share the gospel. Yeah, I'm saying you need to share the gospel with him. So you believe in this election thing and he's pulling his back fist back and what's that? And I said, I said, you know what? God's going to save who he will. And if God saves your son, apparently it's going to be despite your lack of willingness to go proclaim the gospel. He didn't punch me, I don't know why, but he didn't punch me. But think about this. Men so love darkness. Even in the regenerate people. that they're willing to compromise on the absolute foundational truth of the Word of God. Next point is that although it is pardoned and mortified through Christ, yet this corrupt nature and all its motions are truly and properly sinful. And we need to be very careful here. In this confession, we say that although it is pardoned and mortified through Christ, yet this corrupt nature and all its motions are truly and properly sinful. I want to say something to you. A man of God may not start out desiring holiness. But a true man of God will progress in holiness to the point where he will desire holiness and hate sin. He will sin less and hate his sinfulness more. He will see himself as a wretched man as he truly is, saved by a good God, not as a good man saved by just a kind friend. The reason that people don't progress in sanctification is they don't see how wretched they are. The danger here is, is that many people claim that they're carnal Christians. They claim that they can live a sinful, wicked lifestyle and die and go to heaven because they made a prayer. They said a prayer. They lived the life at one point in time. They used to be Christians. They did the things that are necessary to be called a Christian. See, there was an idea once that Christianity meant this. And then at a later point in time, generations later, people said, well, this is what makes for a good Christian. So these are the doctrines that we agree with. And since we agree with these doctrines, if you will agree with these, what we say is truth, then that just makes you a Christian. So they went from saying, the Bible says, this is what makes you a Christian. So go ahead and repent and believe the gospel. the proclamation of the gospel. Artaxerxes talked about the fact that there was the announcement of the gospel, the assumption of the gospel, and the abandonment of the gospel. Remember that. I want you to think about this. We announced the gospel. We said these are the things that we believe that the Bible says the Bible teaches that you must be to become a Christian. The problem is you're not those things and you must repent and believe the gospel. Salvation was predicated and stands upon Jesus Christ alone. Listen to that. Oh wretched man that I am who shall deliver me from this body of death. I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then, with the mind I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin." See, the point here is that he is still, he knows that he is the wretched man. He knows that he's the wicked sinner because he thinks about sin. And because he thinks about sin in his flesh, his mind, his spirit has been turned to Christ, and because he sees his wickedness, he shuns it and hates it, and he realizes how wicked he truly is. You see, that's the gospel announced. But when you assume the gospel, you say, these are the things that make a Christian. These are the works of a Christian. And you say, I agree. And then so you're declared to be a Christian. And what happens is later on the gospel is abandoned because we're assumed that everyone's already a Christian. And so the gospel becomes so quickly abandoned and we don't see that we're actually wretched men. So this is where I have a major problem with the Presbyterian doctrine. Because the Presbyterian doctrine says at so many days or whatever of age, a child is baptized into the family covenant. I'm gonna talk about covenantalism here in just a little while, and actually I'm gonna talk about it for the next couple weeks. There is no family covenant. You must come to Christ individually and personally, believing, hearing, receiving, repenting, in obedience, in contrition, in sorrow. The family covenant says that this child is baptized into the family covenant, and because he's brought into the family covenant, that he is therefore part of the family of God, and that some later date, this child then does what? Confirms through a confirmation class, he agrees through a confirmation class, He acknowledges through a confirmation class that he agrees with the doctrines that the Bible sets out with. Not because he heard the gospel and was brought in broken contrition, but because he heard the doctrines and said, uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh. Congratulations, brother. You're a Christian. You see, you went from announced or proclaimed to assumed. Can 13, 14 year old kids hear that truth in that what's being said and truly come to Christ? Yes. But is that the norm? No. Is that the gospel proclamation? No. Is that godly sorrow that works repentance? No. Is that a call upon a wicked, vile, dead, depraved sinner to come to Christ? No. That's them realizing that they were truly saved back when they were baptized and brought into the family covenant. There's only one way of salvation. It's not through assuming the gospel, it's through proclaiming it and repenting of your wickedness and sin. It says, although sin is pardoned and mortified through Christ. Let me ask you a question. I'm gonna give you two scenarios and I want you to think about the question I'm gonna ask. Scenario number one, you're having a hard day. You've come to Christ, you've accepted Jesus as your Savior, your Lord, and everybody sees you. You're at church, you're sweet and kind and gentle, and you're humble, and you're just a glowing, shining light of Christianity. But you're having a hard day. You woke up late, the kids didn't cooperate, the dog killed the cat, the cat got sprayed by a skunk, The dog is therefore stinky and nasty. Your car won't start. Your husband says something to you that wasn't nice. Your wife says something to you that wasn't nice. You look bad in this dress. You look terrible in that outfit. You gotta get up. You've been up all night. You've been working too hard. Blah, blah, blah. All these bad things, terrible things happen to you. And you lose it. You begin the tirade of screaming, yelling, cussing, and going on, and you're just the whole gambit. Which one's truly you? The one that everybody sees at church? The one that sees the glowing, shining light of the gospel? Or the one that you've just opened up and revealed to maybe your family? Or maybe you do it in the middle of the church. We've seen that happen. Which one's truly you? I'm going to tell you something. Who you are on your worst day is who you truly are when you're not trying to hide who you are from everybody. You see, out of the heart, Paul realizes he's a wretched man. He's not showing a pretense. That's the man you have to kill. That's the man you have to mortify. God has forgiven you of all of your sin. That's the one that you need to kill. Not the fake pretender. Actually, you need to kill that one too. But not so much the fake pretender. You need to quit pretending and be that person. The fake pretender needs to die as well. You need to be the real. But think about it. The loud, arrogant, screaming, hate-filled monster who doesn't get their way and blows up and is ready to kill everybody and cuss everybody out and want to fight with everybody and blows up. That's the one that Paul recognizes. That's the one that Paul says, he is the monster of iniquity. And until you get deep enough in your prayer time, in your study of the Word of God, in your practice of mortifying your own wickedness, until you actually decide that I'm going to kill the wicked man that only God sees, and occasionally my family or those that I blow up at, until you do that, you'll never get to Romans 7, 23-25. You will never be that man Paul is. Because why? You're dealing with sin superficially. And how are you doing it? You're masking it and you're covering it up. You're hiding it so nobody sees it. You're covering it to the point where all the people who would think badly of you, well, we don't want them to think badly. And so in the church, what happens? It's carnival Christianity. You've got to have a game show. You've got to have fun and games because you can't deal with mortifying sin. You can't call out sin. You can't look in the eyes of the sinners in the room and say, this person truly is a sinner and needs counsel. They need somebody to love them enough to talk to them about pornography. They need somebody to love them enough to warn them about sexual lust. Anger, resentment, rage, hate, slander, gossip. We could talk about about a million different things. How you treat wife, how your wife treats you. All of the things that the Bible talks about. The reason that we don't get to verse 24, O wretched man that I am, is because instead of trying to realize that we're wretched people, what do we do? We cover it up with a veneer of Christianity. And the problem with this statement is, is many people will look at that and say, if I've been pardoned, once saved, always saved, I'm covered, I can do whatever I want to. Listen to me. If you have been pardoned, instead of compromising, you're going to dig deeper into yourself. You're going to look deeper into your own sinfulness and you will go publicly and privately. Repenting. Of your sin. You will. Want to make your record clean before people that you've offended, you will want to. Go why? Because God is worthy. Listen to what it says. Verse 25, I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord, so then, with the mind, I myself serve the law of God. With the flesh, the law of sin. You have two laws here, and Paul says as a Christian, I fight myself. I don't want to be everything I used to be. When I look and I see my depravity and my ungenerosity or my lack of generosity or my wickedness or these things and that things, I kill it. But the corrupt sinner who's playing a game, he looks for reasons to pardon himself. He doesn't look for reasons to mortify His own flesh. Galatians 5.17, For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh, and these are contrary to one another, so that ye cannot do the things that ye would. The Spirit of God, the Spirit that lives inside of you, if you're a Christian, the Spirit that lives inside of you hates the Spirit that lives in this world and hates the flesh that your body is in. and it wants to mortify. You know what that word mortify means? It wants to kill your flesh. If you were a Christian, you're going to fail, and then you do what? You run back and say, oh, wretched man that I am, Lord God, please forgive me, a vile sinner. You don't justify sin. You look and you want to mortify your sin. And you want to kill it. You want it to die. You want it to end. For the true Christian, what do we have as our heart's desire? Is it not to be with God? Is it not to be in heaven? If that's the case, then the true Christian's heart, the true Christian's desire is to be like Christ, to be like God. We've therefore learned to hate sin. Because God promised that there would be no sin in heaven. Okay, well, we're now at chapter 7. And we're done. We're not going any further today. We're going to end there. Let's go ahead and pray. And next week we'll get to chapter seven and God's covenant.