Dale Partridge - Romans 3_13-18： Total Depravity： The Wickedness of Humanity

00:00:00.000 In this episode of Real Christianity, I continue my teaching on the doctrine of total depravity

00:00:04.620 and why no man can come to God on his own.

00:00:07.820 This is Essential Christian Doctrine, and I encourage you to grab your Bible,

00:00:12.200 pay attention, and get ready for some powerful truths.

00:00:14.760 All that and more coming up right now.

00:00:30.000 Welcome to Real Christianity. My name is Dale Partridge. Today's episode is titled

00:00:38.700 Romans 3, 13 through 18, Total Depravity, The Wickedness of Humanity. Now, as you guys know,

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00:01:55.840 slash donate all right guys we are going to dive in today we're going to be covering part two of

00:02:01.520 our two-week series on the sermon called total depravity why no man can come to god that was part

00:02:08.000 one this is the part two uh the wickedness of humanity now if this was one sermon it would be

00:02:15.600 be broken down into three sections. Last episode, you heard us cover section one and section

00:02:21.320 two, which is the universal condemnation of men, which is chapter three, verses nine through

00:02:26.340 10, and the universal condition of man, which is verses 10 through 12. Today, we're going

00:02:31.900 to be talking about the universal acts of men, which is verses 13 through 18. Now, last

00:02:38.140 week, we talked all about the total depravity and what that really looks like, that doctrine

00:02:44.500 in a pretty deep capacity.

00:02:47.600 In reviewing sermons of other theologians

00:02:50.180 on this same passage of scripture,

00:02:52.620 I saw one gentleman from the 1800s

00:02:54.900 outline this section this way,

00:02:56.740 and I really appreciated it.

00:02:58.280 He had it as the general charge of unrighteousness,

00:03:01.500 the disordered heart, the disordered words,

00:03:04.240 disordered actions, the cause of the disordering.

00:03:07.480 Now, I appreciated his outline

00:03:08.800 because the emphasis was on

00:03:12.520 when you have an unregenerate heart.

00:03:14.500 that essentially that will lead to defective thinking and that defective thinking will lead

00:03:22.380 to defective living. And so it's really this waterfall cascading effect that begins in the

00:03:29.200 heart. And so if the heart is sick, everything else is sick as well. And that's really what Paul

00:03:35.500 is getting at in this passage of scripture. Proverbs 4.23 says, keep your heart with all

00:03:41.800 vigilance, for from it flows the springs of life. Luke 645, Jesus says, the good person out of the

00:03:50.160 good treasure of his heart produces good, and the evil person out of his treasure produces evil.

00:03:57.760 For out of the abundance of his heart, his mouth speaks. Mark 7, 21 to 23, Jesus says,

00:04:05.520 for from within out of the heart of man come evil thoughts sexual immorality theft murder adultery

00:04:12.780 coveting wickedness deceit sensuality envy slander pride foolishness all these things come from

00:04:20.680 within and they defile a person so in scripture the heart of man is often closely related or even

00:04:28.200 synonymous with the soul of man it depends on the passage of scripture in the context in the journal

00:04:33.620 the Society of Biblical Literature of Exegesis, this is from 1882, I found this really great

00:04:40.200 paragraph. It says, in the great majority of its occurrences in the scriptures, the word heart is

00:04:46.280 used figuratively. It is said to stand for the, quote, central part in general, the inside,

00:04:53.260 and so for the interior man as manifesting himself in all of his various activities,

00:04:59.180 in all his desires, affections, emotions, passions, purposes, his thoughts, perceptions,

00:05:06.200 imaginations, his wisdom, knowledge, skills, his beliefs, and his reasonings, his memory,

00:05:12.060 and his consciousness, end quote. So in short, we have to learn that when the heart and the soul

00:05:20.020 of a man is unregenerate, that his soul is dead because his soul is separated from the source of

00:05:28.440 life which is god that only death will flow out of him that's essentially the teaching that we're

00:05:33.800 going to be hitting today is that when the heart is dead and the heart is disconnected unregenerate

00:05:39.000 the soul is separated from its life source that it is dead and therefore only death will come out

00:05:45.000 of that individual because the source the heart is dead when that person is alive and life is flowing

00:05:51.800 then life will be coming out of this individual and so uh the greatest prayer i would say in the

00:05:58.840 entire psalter in the book of psalms is psalm 51 10 which reads create in me a clean heart oh god

00:06:06.520 and renew a right spirit within me without this prayer being answered a man first cannot be

00:06:13.000 righteous we know that but they cannot see they cannot understand and they cannot behave properly

00:06:19.080 and so this is why i believe it's really just an essential prayer because it is the starting point

00:06:24.680 to salvation regeneration fruitfulness faithfulness in life jesus speaks to those who have been given

00:06:32.840 a new heart in matthew uh 5 8 he says blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see god

00:06:43.080 Ultimately, a regenerated heart that has been made spiritually alive, again, or a spiritual

00:06:49.480 resurrection, being born again is another way of saying that, is the act of God producing

00:06:54.940 this new life and uniting that once dead heart that was separated from him. Now, uniting himself

00:07:02.460 with that individual, with that soul, that soul is now alive because it is connected to Christ.

00:07:09.600 And we know this because the Holy Spirit is actually coming in and dwelling within the individual.

00:07:16.660 And there is a uniting there where you are separated from God and now you are united to God.

00:07:22.980 There is actually an entire doctrine called the doctrine of union that we are united in Christ.

00:07:28.420 Now, if you read the book of Ephesians, you will hear that trend and theme over and over again.

00:07:33.500 Now, in this passage of scripture, Paul is attempting to clarify with the uttermost force.

00:07:38.860 and distinction that outside of Christ, this is your biography. Outside of being born again and

00:07:49.140 resurrected and regenerate, this is the description of who you are, or it is the description of who

00:07:55.900 you were. It is the description of those people who have not been born again. And this is really

00:08:02.200 the totality of the discussion over the last two weeks or last week and this week. And so

00:08:07.880 the previous episode, we learned about humanity's unrighteous state, their inability to comprehend

00:08:14.960 spiritual things because they're spiritually dead and you cannot comprehend spiritual matters if

00:08:20.400 you're not spiritually alive. It was about their unwillingness to seek for God. There was no

00:08:26.180 interest. There was no desire to seek for God. And we also learned about their powerlessness

00:08:32.540 to do anything that was good because even their good works were filthy rags because they weren't

00:08:37.000 done to the glory of God. They were done separated from the life of God, separated in a posture to

00:08:43.680 bring self-glorification or self-righteousness to present themselves to God, but they weren't

00:08:49.140 actually done from a regenerate heart to the glory of Christ. So today we shift the matter

00:08:54.500 from the dead heart to the materialization of that heart in the life of an individual who is not

00:09:01.840 saved and again this is a biography of who we were prior to christ and if you want to read

00:09:07.840 ephesians chapter 2 where paul writes and you were dead this past tense you were dead and then

00:09:15.040 it goes down to verse 4 in chapter 2 and it says but god made us alive and so there's this between

00:09:22.880 verses 2 or chapter 2 verse 1 through 3 it gives you again a similar description of what we see here

00:09:29.440 in Romans chapter three, verses 10 through 18.

00:09:33.740 And so the section we're gonna read right here

00:09:36.020 is the universal acts of man.

00:09:37.880 It's gonna be verses 13 through 18.

00:09:39.860 I'm gonna read it right now.

00:09:40.700 It says, their throat is an open grave.

00:09:44.540 With their tongues, they keep deceiving.

00:09:47.380 The poison of asps is under their lips,

00:09:50.740 whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness.

00:09:54.220 Their feet are swift to shed blood.

00:09:57.000 destruction and misery are in their paths and the path of peace they have not known there is no fear

00:10:04.880 of God before their eyes okay so in describing a wicked person Jesus said in Luke 6 45 for out of

00:10:14.200 the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks in this verse Paul really includes the fullness of

00:10:23.500 the mouth or the organ of communication, which would be the throat, the lips, the tongue,

00:10:30.640 and the mouth. And he's showing a totality that's occurring here. He's demonstrating

00:10:36.460 that wicked men pour out their wickedness through or out of their mouths. And this is absolutely

00:10:45.320 true. And we can see this in reality. We can see this in our own experiences. Now, some of you

00:10:51.580 know that I have a somewhat significant following on social media and I get to see a lot of the

00:10:59.140 mouth being poured out in the comment section of my posts. Just last week, I posted about

00:11:05.700 the immodesty of women that occur during the Halloween season and how the normal cultural

00:11:14.280 perspective on modesty somehow shifts and allows women essentially to dress like prostitutes

00:11:21.500 and nobody notices uh actually we all know that they do notice it and we know that fallen men

00:11:26.780 appreciate that and we know what's really going on but i made this post and on twitter it had over

00:11:33.820 5 600 comments of the most vile evil demonic wicked dark comments from both men and women

00:11:46.220 it was really like satan's sewer just draining out in my comment section of my post and this

00:11:55.740 is what we should expect it's really a fire hose of of the heart and so if the heart is dead and

00:12:03.260 it has no life and it loves sin and it's not united to christ it's actually united to sin

00:12:08.780 it's not alive to christ it's actually alive to sin we should expect the mouth to be a fire hose

00:12:15.020 of death. And that's exactly what is true with our own personal experience, especially if you're

00:12:20.980 on social media. But it's also true if you just watch the news or you have your own personal

00:12:24.940 experience with relationships. Now, words are no small thing. Words are no small thing. We know

00:12:30.800 this because Jesus in Matthew 12, 36 to 37 says, I tell you, on the day of judgment, people will

00:12:38.620 give an account for every careless word they speak for by your words you will be justified

00:12:44.860 and by your words you will be condemned and quote there will actually be a time where every one of

00:12:50.840 those individuals that are writing these vile comments in my comment section on twitter will

00:12:56.620 actually stand before the judge and give an account for every word that they said against

00:13:03.640 against God's law, against God's righteousness, against one of God's saints. This is absolutely

00:13:10.460 true. And this is what this passage in principle is teaching. It also talks about how vital words

00:13:17.620 are. We know that Romans 10, 9 through 10 says, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord

00:13:26.180 and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart,

00:13:32.900 one believes and is justified and with the mouth one confesses and is saved this is another

00:13:39.040 moment where you see the connection between the heart and the mouth and so the heart is when it's

00:13:46.440 dead it spews out wickedness and evil but when the heart is made alive it says that for with the

00:13:53.600 heart one believes and is justified and with the mouth one confesses and is saved so that the the

00:14:00.580 really the substance of the mouth shifts when the heart shifts and that's what's being taught here

00:14:06.760 in a very real way the mouth is a mirror to the state of the soul and so yes we know that

00:14:16.660 that saints sin and saints still say terrible things but generally speaking the mouth is a

00:14:25.540 mirror to the state of the soul. And there is one-off occurrences of failure and sin,

00:14:32.900 but the general normative flow of a person's mouth can really tell you about the state of

00:14:38.780 their heart. And so if, again, the soul is dead, then the mouth will spew out death.

00:14:45.720 And if the soul is alive, the mouth will sing out life and will be fruitful and joyful and filled

00:14:52.500 with things of the Lord. And this is the exact imagery that Paul is using here. The throat

00:14:57.600 is really, the throat of the wicked, I should say, is really, as he says, is an open grave.

00:15:04.860 And so the grave is the heart and the throat is opening and it really emits fumes of death. So

00:15:15.300 there's some kind of unique poetic language here that is really articulate in explaining

00:15:23.540 what is true. The tongue is a tool of deception is what Paul says here in, what is it? It says

00:15:33.100 with their tongues, they keep on deceiving in verse 13. And it says their lips are poison

00:15:40.340 and intended to kill. They are weapons intending to pierce. And so one thing that I think about

00:15:48.040 is there's a relationship here that in doing my study, I thought this was really interesting.

00:15:57.060 There's a relationship here. There's a parallel between, we know that the enemy, Satan, is

00:16:02.740 basically explained as a serpent. And how do serpents kill? They kill with their mouths,

00:16:09.440 with their fangs um and so there's some sort of association here with their lips being poison um

00:16:18.160 you know i'll read the passage again with their tongues they keep on deceiving the poison of

00:16:22.640 asp is under their lips whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness there is a relationship

00:16:28.800 here a corollary between um the uh the serpent and those who are submitting to the to their

00:16:39.760 master which is the serpent and there is a corollary between those who have been made alive

00:16:45.360 and their relationship with their mouth uh to jesus christ and being redeemed and so

00:16:51.360 some interesting stuff there but essentially they are venomous like their father the devil

00:16:56.560 ultimately their mouths are just full of hate and so you can you can spend just about five minutes

00:17:02.980 on my Twitter account and receive a full HD manifestation of this passage of scripture

00:17:11.380 and you can go wow that is true that's exactly true of these people who don't love the Lord it's

00:17:16.900 absolutely brutal and should by the evidence validate what the apostle is actually saying

00:17:22.120 in this passage of scripture about the heart and soul of man.

00:17:25.920 So the evidence is robust,

00:17:29.000 meaning that Paul is saying when you're spiritually dead,

00:17:31.460 you spew out death.

00:17:32.720 So if the evidence supports that claim,

00:17:35.400 then we can say that that claim is also reliable.

00:17:39.160 And so this is a very helpful way to examine and evaluate

00:17:42.300 what the scriptures are saying is that they come back true.

00:17:46.060 Wicked man is not righteous.

00:17:49.060 Wicked man does not understand God,

00:17:51.560 does not seek for God, does not allow for the righteousness of God, does not follow God,

00:17:56.200 does not do any good. And he has proven that all those things are true by his mouth. He has

00:18:05.380 proven that he is disinterested, doesn't understand, hates God, all those things come

00:18:13.800 out of his mouth. And so he must be what? Mercifully, graciously, sovereignly resurrected

00:18:22.160 from the heart in order for him to do anything that would be glorifying to God. So let's read

00:18:29.820 verses 15 through 17. It says, their feet are swift to shed blood. Destruction and misery

00:18:37.040 are in their paths and the path of peace they have not known. There is no fear of God before

00:18:43.040 their eyes so the apostle moves from the mouth to the body and so there's a sense of of he's

00:18:52.240 covering different parts he was maybe covering the mind even before in verses 10 through 13.

00:18:58.560 he's going to the mouth he's going to the body he's demonstrating a total depravity of the entire

00:19:05.520 being of a lost person and that's really what that doctrine means it doesn't mean that we are

00:19:10.880 as bad as we could be we know that common grace really prevents those things from occurring god's

00:19:18.160 god's actually restraining evil in the world but there is a total depravity meaning that

00:19:24.480 the heart uh the dead heart depraves our mind it depraves our thoughts it depraves our words

00:19:32.160 it depraves our bodies it depraves our actions it depraves our entire being we are totally

00:19:40.160 depraved and that's really what the doctrine means so bloodshed um as it talks about here

00:19:47.200 their feet are swift to shed blood bloodshed is the biography of mankind we know this to be true

00:19:55.440 history is violent and it's full of chaos and carnage um every war riot bombing shooting and

00:20:03.280 murder a test to the truth of the apostles claim now you guys know that i'm a post-millennial

00:20:09.200 and i do believe that we are going to start to see over the next centuries to come and millennia to

00:20:14.320 come that as the gospel continues to be proclaimed and the lord continues to save and turn sinners

00:20:22.560 into saints that there will be a reduction of evil in the world now it might not happen in the

00:20:28.000 next 50 years but i believe that we are actually seeing a reduction of evil in the world i know it

00:20:33.440 might not feel like that because we have amplified it with the internet but the reality is is that

00:20:38.480 you know a millennia or two ago we were watching lions and bears eat people alive for sport and

00:20:44.960 and we're not doing that now prostitution was widespread and legal that is not true now um

00:20:52.800 there is far more laws and things that are going on that that have really shown that there is

00:20:56.880 actually an improvement generally speaking in morality now we know that god's sanctification

00:21:03.120 of the world and the progress of the great commission is like a uh can be viewed almost

00:21:09.040 like a stock market from our perspective it looks like it's going up and then down and then up but

00:21:13.600 if you zoom out generally the trend is going upward is that there are more christians in the

00:21:18.640 world than there was 500 years ago and there were more christians then than there was 500 years

00:21:23.120 before that and there were more christians then than there was 500 years before that that the

00:21:26.720 lord is continuing to convert the masses and we should ask ourselves the question why would we

00:21:31.680 we ever consider why would we ever think that that would stop if Christ is at the head of his

00:21:36.640 church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it and the kingdom of God is like leaven

00:21:40.260 that will leaven the entire lump why would we consider that the church would get smaller it's

00:21:44.060 not it's going to continue to grow and get bigger but however we do have this historical reality

00:21:49.140 that the fallenness of man is painted across the pages of history and and the wars and the shootings

00:21:55.360 and the child uh school shootings and the suicides and all these things are all over here and I'm not

00:22:00.780 saying that there will be a point where there will be no sin i am just saying that the lord

00:22:04.860 is going to continue to permeate the earth with his gospel and the great commission will be

00:22:08.780 fulfilled and we can have hope that the church will continue to grow and the world will continue

00:22:16.300 to lose to king jesus and so when we talk about just the the raw numbers of wickedness you know

00:22:26.380 because it's really easy self-love is blinding it's easy for us to think that we're not as bad

00:22:31.500 as we really are let me just give you an idea just a picture historically john macarthur cited

00:22:37.020 in one of his books from i think it's from maybe 20 30 years ago he says even in the united states

00:22:42.460 with its christian heritage since the turn of the 20th century twice as many of its citizens

00:22:49.740 have been slain in private acts of murder than have been killed in all the wars of its entire

00:22:57.340 history so there has been more death in private acts of murder in america than we have experienced

00:23:07.500 in all of the wars revolutionary civil uh war uh world war one world war ii you know korean war

00:23:15.340 or all the Vietnam War and so forth, there has been more acts of private murder than casualties

00:23:24.680 of all those wars combined. And so, we are absolutely experiencing and seeing the truth

00:23:33.060 of this passage of scripture reign true here on earth historically. Now, he says in this passage

00:23:42.360 here verse 17 and the path of peace they have not known so ultimately peace is foreign to

00:23:52.040 mankind it's foreign uh civility is the only possible uh path uh which is in again by god's

00:24:01.880 grace that keeps civility going is that it's uh you know what are some other things that keep

00:24:07.240 civility the fear of punishment and consequences i'm not going to murder that person because i

00:24:12.840 don't want to go to jail um or there's some sort of personal benefit for civility i i like it that

00:24:20.360 my neighbors don't steal my things um so i'm gonna you know sustain my desire to steal and destroy

00:24:28.680 because i i it actually benefits me um but true peace again that peace that's fueled by love

00:24:35.080 is unknown to the world now again my argument earlier for the post-millennial view is that

00:24:41.080 uh i don't believe that the world is going to change and all of a sudden uh everything's gonna

00:24:45.960 start getting better i think that the gospel is going to continue to permeate and infiltrate the

00:24:51.640 culture as it has we started with what 12 guys that uh basically go out with the great commission

00:24:59.800 and so we're talking about 0.0.0 you know one percent of the population is christian in the

00:25:04.920 world and now we're at 31 of the world's population confesses christ i know that's

00:25:09.960 an inflated number and that not every individual actually is converted but the reality is is that

00:25:15.240 number is massive and it's continuing to grow and it's because the great commission will not stop

00:25:19.800 and jesus will not stop converting sinners into saints and so we can trust that we are going to

00:25:24.760 see some sort of a reduction uh it doesn't mean that sin is going to go away and there's still

00:25:28.680 going to always be true that people that are lost this biography will be true of them but we are

00:25:35.080 going to see that there is hope for the church and that the world will continue to be redeemed

00:25:39.960 because god loves the world um first john 4 8 says anyone who does not love does not know god

00:25:48.280 because god is love so the the ability to love is dependent upon your relationship with the lord

00:26:00.680 now the world's form of love which isn't real love because real love has a concern for eternity

00:26:10.920 real love has a concern for your relationship with the lord um worldly love which is really a

00:26:18.760 form of lust or a form of you know maybe camaraderie uh or whatever whatever it may be

00:26:25.400 is not a biblical definition of love a biblical definition of love must be glorifying to god and

00:26:31.400 so the people that don't know god don't actually love according to scripture they have a form of

00:26:38.360 love but it's not a biblical form of love and so uh this is something that therefore because

00:26:44.440 they don't have love they can't have uh it's it's it's again representative of their lack of a

00:26:49.560 relationship with god god is love and therefore they can't have the other fruits of the spirit

00:26:54.360 which is peace joy and so these are again we have superficial peace we have superficial joy

00:27:00.200 uh but we're not actually having true peace we're not having true joy we're not having true love

00:27:04.680 because those things are only true when our souls are connected the source of those realities which

00:27:10.520 is god and so paul closes with this uh description of the cause and you know he just finished

00:27:20.520 doing this awful you know comprehensive explanation of mankind and then he sums it up with

00:27:30.280 the source of all of it why why is it like this why do we behave this way why do we not understand

00:27:38.040 and why do we not seek for god and why do we have no desire why can't we do good and why do we let

00:27:43.720 death flow out of our mouths and why do we uh you know try to kill people and murder people and why

00:27:49.320 do we not have peace and why have we turned our own way why uh this the summation of that is really

00:27:56.360 answered in verse 18 says there is no fear of god before their eyes and this statement is taken from

00:28:03.640 psalm 36 1 which says transgression speaks to the wicked deep in his heart there is no fear of god

00:28:11.160 before his eyes end quote um the fear of the lord is an important theological maxim i wish we had

00:28:20.440 time to do an entire episode on the fear of the lord you could do a 25-part series on the fear

00:28:26.200 of the lord the term the fear of the lord is used 127 times in the old testament and 25 times

00:28:34.840 in the new testament now the frequency uh difference between those two testaments is

00:28:41.080 only because the page count is different the old testament is much thicker and longer than the uh

00:28:47.720 than the new testament so there is still a ongoing consistent trend of the fear of the lord in the

00:28:54.200 in the New Testament.

00:28:55.040 Now the fear of the Lord is not being afraid of the Lord.

00:28:58.160 There's a difference there.

00:28:59.060 Fear really is this reverential comprehension

00:29:02.280 of understanding your place before the Lord.

00:29:05.680 It is a good thing.

00:29:07.900 It is not that you are afraid of the Lord.

00:29:11.540 It's not that a father

00:29:13.640 that has a good relationship with his children,

00:29:15.540 his children should have a reverential fear for their father

00:29:20.480 in the sense that my son doesn't smack my wife

00:29:25.640 in the face when he gets angry

00:29:27.000 because there's a reverential fear there,

00:29:29.280 but my son is not afraid of me

00:29:31.220 because he knows that I love him.

00:29:33.260 And so there's far more metaphors and analogies

00:29:37.660 that are probably more proficient

00:29:39.140 than the one that I just gave.

00:29:40.040 But the reality is the fear of the Lord

00:29:43.940 is a vital hallmark of scripture.

00:29:47.080 In fact, if you look at the wisdom literature,

00:29:49.680 which is Proverbs, Job, and Ecclesiastes.

00:29:53.580 Those three books in the Old Testament

00:29:56.000 are bookended with the concept of the fear of the Lord.

00:29:59.960 If you read Proverbs chapter one, verse seven,

00:30:04.140 the opening, the concluding stanza of that first proverb

00:30:07.560 is the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge.

00:30:11.020 Fools despise wisdom and instruction.

00:30:14.060 Now, so you have that as the opening side.

00:30:15.740 Now, in the final stanza of the book of Ecclesiastes,

00:30:23.560 which is Solomon, the wisest man who ever lived,

00:30:26.840 he is contemplating all the things of life

00:30:30.240 and he concludes his book with this statement.

00:30:34.920 The end of the matter, all has been heard.

00:30:37.860 Fear God and keep his commandments

00:30:40.540 for this is the whole duty of man.

00:30:43.140 for God will bring every deed into judgment

00:30:45.560 with every secret thing, whether good or evil.

00:30:49.840 So ultimately, the most essential principle in life

00:30:54.300 for man is to know his place before his God.

00:30:58.280 He needs to know that he is created

00:31:00.400 and that he has a creator.

00:31:01.960 And that creator has the right to tell his creation

00:31:06.880 how they ought to live.

00:31:09.800 But more than that,

00:31:11.300 because this creator is perfect and holy and just, his creatures must know that God must punish those

00:31:18.940 creatures who sin against his will. And that's how we have a just God. And this is really the exact

00:31:28.140 problem that man has. There is no fear of God before their eyes, is what Paul says here. There

00:31:36.540 is no submission they are insubordinate they are rejecting god's right over his creation

00:31:48.220 and there is no awe of his majesty there is no respect for his jurisdiction there's no reverence

00:31:54.540 for his authority in their life there is no concern for his commands again man is insubordinate

00:32:02.940 out of submission um self-ruling wanting to be god themselves uh this is again part of the fallen

00:32:11.340 in genesis 3 is to be like god that is the fundamental flaw of mankind i i will say

00:32:20.140 something as kind of a caveat just because we don't fear the lord as fallen man doesn't mean

00:32:25.100 that we don't fear man is full of fear it's full of the wrong fear they fear rulers they fear

00:32:33.100 consequences they fear death they fear worry they fear anxiety they fear uh you know conflict they

00:32:40.540 fear all these different things they they fear shame and guilt they fear pain they fear sickness

00:32:48.060 they fear these things and they fear them all more than they fear god i once counseled a

00:32:54.620 gentleman who was looking at inappropriate content on the internet and i remember his statement to

00:33:00.540 me that his chief fear was the anger of his wife that that continued to come out and for that

00:33:07.660 reason he refused to tell her of his transgression against her in their marriage uh in other words

00:33:14.780 really he feared his wife more than he feared god his main concern wasn't that he sinned against god

00:33:20.380 he was afraid of the consequences it wasn't even a concern for his wife he was afraid of the

00:33:25.500 consequences that would be afflicted upon him obviously this was indicative that he wasn't

00:33:31.420 regenerate his concern wasn't for the lord he didn't have the fear of the lord before his eyes

00:33:36.460 he had no problem sinning this way as long as his wife didn't need to know so yes he he didn't feel

00:33:44.140 bad about the sin he felt guilty about getting caught he felt guilty about his uh shame um he

00:33:52.060 felt um concerned about uh you know the consequences would come as a result of being known about these

00:33:58.940 realities uh and his concern wasn't primarily with breaking god's will for his life but the

00:34:05.820 consequences and shame that would come as a result and so that's pretty common we fear these things

00:34:12.140 but it's a misplaced fear we have a misprioritization of fear i'm going to read you a

00:34:18.380 couple quotes oswald chambers once said the remarkable thing about god is that when you

00:34:23.260 fear god you fear nothing else whereas if you do not fear god you fear everything else

00:34:29.580 the great puritan writer william gurnall said quote we fear men so much because we fear god

00:34:37.020 so little a gk chesterton once said when man's terror scares you turn your thoughts to the wrath

00:34:44.300 of god uh john flavel said the carnal person fears man not god the strong christian fears god not man

00:34:55.020 the weak christian fears man too much and god too little end quote now i think out of all these

00:35:01.580 statements on fear these quotes on fear i think tozer a w tozer hits the nail on the head when

00:35:07.420 he says no one can know the true grace of god who is not first known the fear of god see the fear of

00:35:16.940 the lord is essential it's an essential ingredient to understand god in his gospel to understand the

00:35:25.100 grace and mercy that's been extended extended to us in christ we must also first know the fear of

00:35:32.860 the lord for violating his commandments and the wrath of god coming for us essentially we have to

00:35:40.540 know the bad news before the good news can be good we have to know the sickness before the healing

00:35:46.780 will be accepted we have to be wounded by the law and the fear of the wrath of god before we can be

00:35:52.860 healed with the ointment of the gospel this is absolutely true and this is actually one of the

00:36:01.500 prime components uh and fundamental features of the new covenant and this constant maintenance

00:36:09.100 for maintaining a healthy fear of the lord it's something that every christian should cultivate

00:36:16.700 within themselves is a is a continuing sustaining fear of the lord according to scripture and the

00:36:26.940 beautiful thing about the new covenant is that god promises to sustain the fear of himself

00:36:32.860 in us and that's in jeremiah 32 40 he says i will make with them an everlasting covenant

00:36:39.340 that I will not turn away from doing good to them and I will put the fear of me in their hearts

00:36:47.680 that they may not turn from me. So there's a purpose clause there. The word that signifies

00:36:55.600 a purpose clause. It says, and I will put the fear of me in their hearts that for the purpose of

00:37:02.700 the reason why, that they may not turn from me. The fear of the Lord is actually

00:37:09.560 the means of maintaining our faithfulness to God. And so these individuals that Paul's talking

00:37:18.000 about who don't have the fear of the Lord before their eyes, it's why they've turned their own way.

00:37:23.160 And they don't have a relationship with God. They don't seek the things of God

00:37:27.080 because they don't have a fear of the Lord.

00:37:29.580 And so again, our fear of God

00:37:31.720 is the means for maintaining our faithfulness to God.

00:37:35.640 And God says that he will keep the fear of himself

00:37:39.180 in us in the new covenant.

00:37:41.200 Again, as I said last week,

00:37:42.520 the best part about the new covenant

00:37:43.940 is that God doesn't just keep his part.

00:37:46.720 He keeps your part.

00:37:47.900 He'll sustain your faith.

00:37:49.520 He'll keep your fear of him.

00:37:51.300 It's really a part of the doctrine

00:37:53.120 of the perseverance of the saints.

00:37:54.980 It's the once saved, always saved doctrine.

00:37:56.860 he will maintain that in you to be assured that we will never turn from him but this is

00:38:05.340 romans 3 9 through 18 or 10 through 18 is that sad state of man apart from god's grace we are

00:38:16.540 all outside of god guilty ignorant disinterested blind lost wayward evil and insubordinate that

00:38:26.540 is our biography uh charles spurgeon once said if any man thinks ill of you do not be angry with him

00:38:34.540 for you are far worse than he thinks you to be and this is true we are absolutely worse

00:38:42.460 than what people think we are we also again self-love is blinding and so it's very easy to

00:38:49.420 think highly of ourselves when in reality we need to actually study this passage of scripture

00:38:55.340 to realize how totally depraved we were how helpless and hopeless we were without the saving

00:39:01.420 and sovereign grace of christ coming in upon our lives and rescuing us and saving us not with our

00:39:07.740 permission without our permissions if we had a choice we would absolutely reject it every single

00:39:13.660 time and that's the doctrine of irresistible grace is that god will overcome our resistance

00:39:19.420 to save his people this is the beautiful truth of the gospel and so an honest grasp of man

00:39:29.100 is utterly essential for an honest grasp of grace an honest grasp of man and your state

00:39:36.860 your moral state your depraved state is an is essential for your honest grasp of grace in the

00:39:43.100 gospel when we realize how impossible and grave our station was prior to christ we will see the

00:39:50.380 mercy of god with new eyes when the uh consequences that we were saved from are so grave we will

00:40:01.340 appreciate in greater degree our savior and so this is again essential for us to experience

00:40:09.500 the grace of god we can truly understand what jesus meant when he said in john 6 44

00:40:17.180 no one can come to me unless the father who sent me draws him we were incapable unless god acted

00:40:25.980 first god needed to act first and regenerate our heart so that we would start seeking and searching

00:40:33.100 and he would give us faith and he would sustain us and this is the grace of the gospel in the

00:40:39.100 face of the total depravity of man so hopefully this episode was helpful as a conclusion of part

00:40:45.500 two on the doctrine of total depravity as we make our way through romans i'm excited to continue

00:40:50.380 down the journey through romans finish out chapter three get into chapter four five six seven eight

00:40:55.820 man these are some incredible chapters so stay on the journey with us uh thank you for listening to

00:41:01.500 this episode if you are a regular listener to this podcast would you guys leave a review you don't

00:41:07.660 need to write something you could just tap the stars but if you do write something i will read

00:41:12.060 it and those uh those statements those comments are very encouraging and they do help getting

00:41:17.900 the show more exposure to new people and so thank you for joining me on this episode of

00:41:23.180 real christianity my name is dale partridge and i'll see you next week

Dale Partridge - October 21, 2022

Romans 3_13-18： Total Depravity： The Wickedness of Humanity

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