Total Depravity

Preached at Cornerstone Church in Cascade, IA on October 19, 2014

Turn in your Bibles to Ephesians 2:1-3. Today I will jump right into reading our text, we will pray, and then we will study the scriptures.

• Ephesians 2:1-3 - “And you were dead in the trespasses and sins 2 in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience-- 3 among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. “
  
  

Today we begin working through the Doctrines of Grace, otherwise known as Calvinism. Up to this point, I have attempted to prepare you for these next five weeks. Two weeks ago I attempted to show through Ephesians 1, one of the most Doctrines of Grace oriented passages in the entire Bible, that God desires us to know these doctrines. God wants us to know His immeasurable greatness when it comes to our salvation. The reason God desires us to know his power in our salvation is because he wants our praise. We saw three times in Ephesians 1 that the product of fruit or knowing God's eternal and specific plan for our salvation is “for the praise of his glory.” God will not share his glory with man, and he wants to set the record straight. If God saves you, then he gets the praise, not you. Thanks be to God.

Last week, I spent 45 minutes basically reading the Bible to you. If my counting is right, I quoted from 16 different books in the Bible, ten Old Testament and six New Testament. In one sense, it was one of the easiest sermons I had written, because it was just cut and paste. However, in another sense it was painstaking because the whole Bible points to the reality that God is sovereign over everything. I had to leave a lot of text on the cutting room floor. The Bible makes it abundantly clear that God is in control of all things, from the dice in Vegas to the hearts the Kings. It is all under his command. The reason for this is that, once again, God has a purpose, His glory.

• Romans 11:36 – “For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen.”
  
  

God creates all things and governs all things, so that he is glorified in all things.

With those two weeks under our belt, whether you are ready of not, we will step into the five points of the Doctrines of Grace: Total Depravity, Unconditional Election, Limited Atonement, Irresistible Grace, and Perseverance of the Saints. The easiest ways to remember these is the acronym TULIP. Today I am going to cover the doctrine of Total Depravity.

The Beginning of Sin

Total Depravity is about sin. So let us begin at the beginning of sin. Turn with me Genesis 3:1-6

• Genesis 3:1-6 – “Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, "Did God actually say, 'You shall not eat of any tree in the garden'?" 2 And the woman said to the serpent, "We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, 3 but God said, 'You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.'" 4 But the serpent said to the woman, "You will not surely die. 5 For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil." 6 So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate.“
  
  

Now to be accurate, this is not the beginning of sin, for sin existed in Heaven before it came to earth. Satan is the Father of sin and was the first creature to rebel against God and His Glory. However, that is perhaps another sermon, but once again, the fact that Satan rebelled in Heaven, in my opinion, is another piece of evidence that God is Sovereign and this is all according to His plan, including Satan’s fall. I can find no other way to explain how this is possible apart from God purposefully allowing it so as to display his Glory.

After Satan’s fall, which Jesus speaks about in Luke 10:18, “"I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven.” Satan shows up in the Soverign Creator’s Garden and tempts Adam and Eve to disobey the Soverign God. Up until this point everything was, according to God, “very good.” The freedom of their will was a freedom from the slavery of sin. In that freedom, Satan tempted Eve and she took the bait. She then offered it to Adam, and he took the bait, and at that moment their eyes were open to good and evil, and they lost their freedom in God and exchanged it for slavery to sin.

The Global Spread of Sin

From that point on, everything changed. No longer was everything “very good.” Everything was very bad. Through the sin of Adam, sin spread everywhere.

• Romans 5:12 – “Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned—“
  
  

And spread it did. All people born after the fall, which is everyone, are born sinners. We all inherit the disease of sin. David says it very well in Psalm 51:5.

• Psalm 51:5 – “Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me.”
  
  

The Hebrew word for “iniquity” is `avon. Avon means perversity or depravity. Every person is born depraved, morally corrupt. What does this depravity look like? It is not pretty. Listen to how Paul defines the universal condition of mankind in Romans 3.

• Romans 3:10-20 – “as it is written: "None is righteous, no, not one; 11 no one understands; no one seeks for God. 12 All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one." 13 "Their throat is an open grave; they use their tongues to deceive." "The venom of asps is under their lips." 14 "Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness."15 "Their feet are swift to shed blood; 16 in their paths are ruin and misery, 17 and the way of peace they have not known." 18 "There is no fear of God before their eyes." 19 Now we know that whatever the law says it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may be held accountable to God. 20 For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin.”
  
  

Did you hear those words? “None righteous” that means zero. No one understands, that means zero. No one seeks God, that means zero. No one does good, that means zero. This message of worldwide depravity is something that the world is completely ignorant of. How many people are posting messages like this on facebook? Hardly anyone. Instead you see videos with young people will cool clothes saying that you are awesome, God loves you because you are so awesome. That is Satan masquerading as an angle of light. The truth is that we are worthless. Jesus doesn't die for you because your awesome, he dies for you because he is awesome, and through his blood and by His Spirit He will make you awesome. There is not one single person that is good. Jesus speaks himself proclaims this.

• Mark 10:18 – “And Jesus said to him, "Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone.”
  
  

The world is totally depraved. There is no hypothetical “sinless person in Africa”. Everyone is a sinner, and everyone deserves Hell. However, this is not the doctrine of total depravity. The total of total depravity is not speaking of the global spread of sin, but it is speaking to the truth of how completely, and utterly depraved we are as individuals.

The Totality of Sin

If we turn back to Genesis and listen to God’s warning to Adam and Eve about disobeying him, what does he say?

• Genesis 2:16 – “And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, "You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, 17 but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die."
  
  

God tells Adam and Eve they will surely die. Did they die? Eventually, yes, they physically die. But God says, “For in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.” The day they ate the fruit did they die? No, not physically, but spiritually. When Adam disobeyed God’s word and took of the fruit, something inside him died, His love for God. In this moment Adam sided with Satan. He chose disobedience, not obedience, and his heart became stone.

• Ephesians 2:1-3 – “And you were dead in the trespasses and sins 2 in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience-- 3 among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.”
  
  

Ephesians 2:1-3 is not talking about Adam. It is talking about everyone on the planet. Verse 3, “the rest of mankind.” What does dead mean? It means dead, no life, no pulse, no heartbeat, completely flat-lined. What can dead people do? Absolutely nothing. Dead people have absolutely no ability to live towards God, to love God. Paul says it again in Ephesians 4:18.

• Ephesians 4:18 – “They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart.”
  
  

Dead, disobedient, dark, ignorant, hard hearts. This is the condition of man after the fall, completely dead to God. Let’s go back to Genesis and see how God explains it.

• Genesis 5:5 – “The LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. “
  
  

The depth of the sinfulness in each person is almost overwhelming in this verse, “every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.” EVERY, ONLY, CONTINUALLY…evil. God is not hiding the ball. He is making it abundantly clear, that man is entirely depraved. And in case we don't believe God after one verse, which is just another peive of evidence of our sinfulness, God continues to speak this truth to us throughout the scripture.

• Titus 1:15 – “to the defiled and unbelieving, nothing is pure; but both their minds and their consciences are defiled. 16 They profess to know God, but they deny him by their works. They are detestable, disobedient, unfit for any good work.”
  
  
• Romans 7:18 – “For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out.”
  
  
• Matthew 7:18 – “A healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a diseased tree bear good fruit.“
  
  
• Romans 8:7-8 – “For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God's law; indeed, it cannot. 8 Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.“
  
  
• Hebrews 11:6 – “And without faith it is impossible to please him,”
  
  
• Isaiah 64:6 – “We have all become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment.”
  
  

Apart from Christ, there is only one thing we do, sin. Everything, even what we call “good” is not good. Is this hard to accept? What about all the good things we see unbelievers do? Like building orphanages, and feeding the poor? How can those be sin? This should be easy for us at Cornerstone to answer. We just spent eight months walking through the Sermon on the Mount where Jesus again and again said it is not about what you do on the outside, it is about your heart. What is your motive to what you are doing? Outwardly your actions may conform, but inside, you are not doing them for the reason God created you, His glory. I don't care if you are Mother Theresa, if you are not doing it for the Glory of God, then all of those “good works” will be consumed by fire in the day of judgment. And on top of this, we are so depraved that we are unable to see the beauty of Christ, and give our lives to him. We are like blind people grouping in the dark, never finding the light switch.

• 1 Corinthians 2:14 – “The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.”
  
  

Because of our sin, we are unable to come to Jesus. We need God to turn on the light so that we can see our sin and see our need for Christ and run to him.

• John 6:44 -  “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him.”
  
  

Once again, no one means no one. In our sin, we are not able to come to Jesus. This is just like we saw in Romans 3, “no one seeks God.” We need God to give us the ability. This is why Jesus says in John 3

• John 3:3 - “ unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God." 
  
  
• John 3:6 - “That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. “
  
  

So hopefully you have seen that it is not as if our heart is kind of bad, or needs just a little scrubbing, it is that our hearts are totally bad. Only, evil, continually. Worthless. Hostile. Only bad fruit. Dead. There is nothing that is good in us. We cannot love him, we cannot glory him. We deserve Hell.

The Desperation of Sin and the Praise of God's Glorious Grace

So where does this leave us? Exactly where God wants us, at a point of desperation. I believe that there is one word that sums up our total depravity, wretched. This is one of the most important revelations any person can have. And this is why Satan hates it. Satan does not want you to know that your heart is desperately sick. He wants to drug you with the world's morphine of self-worth. He wants to keep your from the Great Physician. Satan loves to whisper in your ear, you are awesome. Tickling your ears in his hospice for Hell. And I am here today saying, I will not side with Satan. I side with God's Word. I side with Paul who said:

• Romans 7:24-25 - “Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? 25 Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! “
  
  

Who can pull us out of the darkness of our sin, God thought Christ. Who can bind up our broken hearts, God through Christ. Who can give us eyes to see and ears to hear, God through Christ. Who is the founder of our faith, God through Christ. I end with God's Words about total depravity and the answer to it.

• Ezekiel 36:26 – “And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. 27 And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.”
  
  

To the praise of God's glorious grace!