Romans 3_9-12： Total Depravity： Why No Man Can Come To God
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Summary
In this episode of Real Christianity, Dale Parridge teaches on the doctrine of Total Depravity and why without God intervening in a person s life, no man will choose to follow Jesus. Ephesians 1:9-12 Total depravity: Why no man can come to God
Transcript
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In this episode of Real Christianity, I teach on the doctrine of total depravity.
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That is that I'll be expounding on what the Bible says about humanity. But more than that,
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you will see that without God intervening in a person's life,
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no man will choose to follow Jesus. All that and more coming up right now.
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welcome to real christianity my name is dale partridge today's episode is titled romans 3
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9 through 12 total depravity why no man can come to god now as you know this show is an audio and
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video ministry of relearn.org if you're watching the video recording of this episode please be
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sure to subscribe to follow along for more biblical content if you're listening from apple podcasts
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or google play or even spotify thank you guys for your faithful listenership and if you want to
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follow the ministry on instagram or follow me on twitter i am posting there daily just go ahead
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and find me on those platforms also have you picked up a copy of my newest children's book
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jesus and my gender it's a beautiful hardback book with wonderful illustrations where i affirm god's
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design for male and female gender and the traditional family would you guys consider
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ordering a copy for your local church your local library and even your home we need to get this
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truth out here especially to children you can order your copy at relearn.org forward slash
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gender all right guys let's go ahead and get started into this episode over the past several
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weeks, we've been seeing Paul's exposition of the gospel at the Church of Rome. Now, we learned
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that God has revealed himself in nature, in the things that are made, essentially that we have
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no excuse for atheism. God has left us no room for that, according to Romans chapter 1. We learned
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about the impartiality of God regarding the universal condemnation of the moral law of God
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for both Jew and Gentile. We learned that even though the Jews were born of the seed of Abraham,
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even though they had the mark of circumcision, even though they had possession of God's law,
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that none of these things would bring about justification before a holy God.
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This is mind-boggling to a Jewish person at this time. Paul says at the end of Romans 2,
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28 through 29, for he is not a Jew who is one outwardly, nor is circumcision that which is
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outward in the flesh, but he is a Jew who is one inwardly and circumcision is that which is of the
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heart by the spirit, not by the letter. And his praise is not from men, but from God. Essentially,
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Paul in really Romans chapter one, verses 18, all the way through three, chapter three,
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verses 20 is doing this systematic stripping away
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of religious works, bringing about justification
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before a holy God, meaning that you cannot earn
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your salvation, you cannot obey the law sufficiently
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And this is the stripping away so that essentially
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that Paul can lead them to the only means of justification,
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Now, Paul anticipated the questions and the responses of the Jews that are in Rome about the reality that there are people who are in Israel that have the covenantal mark, that have the moral law of God, that have been born of the seed of Abraham, yet they're not justified.
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So he's anticipating these questions. Essentially, if their covenantal relationship and following the law, if all these things were here, yet they didn't actually offer some sort of salvific advantage to the Jew, then what's the point? That's the question that a Jewish person would be asking.
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If at the end of their lives, they essentially received the same guilty verdict as the Gentiles, then what was the benefit? Is there any benefit of being included in the old covenant with God?
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And so Paul to that reminds them that there are outward covenantal benefits of being a part of God's people, that they were having some sort of inclusion in God's moral law, having understanding of what is right and wrong, having a better way to live, having obviously being chosen as the people that would steward the mystery of the gospel through time.
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And so there was some physical and material possessions
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meaning that it extends to the Gentile world,
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The old covenant, God kept his side of the covenant
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We are sinners from birth, incapable of keeping the law.
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but he also keeps your side of the covenant deal.
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They struggle with the idea of them not being able
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to contribute to their righteous standing before God.
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every other religion in the world is the religion of do,
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but Christianity alone is the religion of done.
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was this struggle to believe that they are as unrighteous
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as the Gentiles or as unrighteous as the pagan nations.
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but they were just as unrighteous according to their ability
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to keep the law as any other pagan nation.
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in Romans chapter three, verses nine through 18.
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that both Jews and Greeks are all under sin.
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As it is written, there is none righteous, not even one.
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we see that Paul is producing a coordinated case
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for pulling away any redemptive hope in religious activity
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and the only hope that we have in being justified
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which he's gonna go into in Romans 3, verse 20 and 21,
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So this is Paul's last ditch effort in this section,
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every drop of religious hope that you might have
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in justifying yourself by works and by obedience to the law.
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And he wants you to understand it is impossible.
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In fact, there is no way that a man will even seek God
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I would say it's titled The Spiritual Deadness of Humanity.
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So I've broken this passage into three sections,
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So we're gonna get through Romans chapter three,
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And then I'm gonna do verses 13 through 18 next week.
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week and so the sections are the universal condemnation of man which is
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verse 9 section 2 is the universal condition of man which we're gonna spend
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most of our time there and that's in verses 10 through 12 and then the
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universal acts of man which will be verses 13 through 18 so let's just go
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ahead and dive into the universal condemnation of man he says what then
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are we better than they not at all for we have already charged that both Jews
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and Greeks are all under sin. Okay, antecedents are important. We know this, if you guys have
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been on this podcast for some time, you know that understanding the antecedents to particular
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pronouns will help you interpret the text more faithfully. Now, an antecedent is the object of
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a particular pronoun, meaning that if I say, Bob threw a ball and he ran to grab it, who is the
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antecedent or what is the antecedent to he? Well, it's Bob because Bob threw it and then he ran to
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get it. So we want to know the antecedents behind these pronouns. So much scriptural interpretation
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is jumbled because of a poor understanding of antecedents or a misinterpretation of antecedents.
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And so it says here, what then are we better than they? So who are the we and who are the they?
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Well, the we is Paul including himself in the Jewish community.
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So he's saying, are we Jews better than they Gentiles?
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And so at this point, we have to get our context right.
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And then he asked the question, or he says the word better.
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The word better is referencing a moral justification.
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Do we have some sort of better justification or moral standing before the Gentiles?
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And to this, he answers, not at all, which is, again, a shocking statement to a Jewish culture.
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So he goes on to give a biblical case and defense for that statement, using a variety of passages from the Old Testament to present the universal condition of man,
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which again leads us into this next section which we're going to spend the majority of our time
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there so pay attention with me here this is section two the universal condition of man
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it says in verse 10 through 12 as it is written there is none righteous not even one there is
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none who understands there is none who seeks for god all have turned aside together they have
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become useless there is none who does good there is not even one so paul anchors this premise of
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that all are under sin, both Jews and Greeks equally under sin.
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It's a way to demonstrate that the argument is not philosophical,
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but he's actually leaning on biblical truth or divine authority
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um now these verses that he uses here uh the the statements there's none righteous not even one
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there's not no one who understands there's none who seeks for god all have turned aside
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these verses are a collection of old testament passages uh on the depravity of man uh they're
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they're from the psalms which we'll talk about here shortly they're also essential truths for
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the doctrine of the total depravity of man which is the t in calvinism in the acronym tulip which
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total depravity unconditional election limited atonement irresistible grace and perseverance of
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the saints but this is a central foundational doctrine to grasp really the reformed soteriology
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or the doctrines of grace it's also a part of the biblical anthropology to give us a a a sound
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understanding of how the scripture describes man and that's what we're going to spend some time on
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as well in addition there are some um there are some other doctrines which we're going to see
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like the doctrine of divine assistance that god essentially needs to come in first in order to
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produce salvation in a individual now when i say the total depravity i don't mean that
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human beings are as depraved as they could be we have common grace that god is restraining sin in
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in the world for the sake of his church. We also know that this doctrine can also be interpreted
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as total inability, that essentially there is man has an inability to release himself from the
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slavery and bondage to sin. There needs to be a replacement of the heart. There needs to be a
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circumcision of the heart or what we would call in theology a regeneration or what John chapter
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three would say is that we need to be born again now we can't born ourselves again and so this
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reality is a total inability that god has to be the one who acts first in regenerating an individual
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because we cannot regenerate ourselves we are not sick and slowly you know having most of our
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abilities uh dampened but still have a little bit of ability to make a good choice and regenerate
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ourselves no we are absolutely dead according to the scriptures and we need to be spiritually
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resurrected we have a dead soul that is separated from god because we know that separation is the
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definition of death so we know that the separation of the body and the soul is the definition of
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physical death we know that separation from this of the soul from god is spiritual death and we
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are born spiritually dead because we're born of adam it's the reason we need to be born again
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is to be spiritually resurrected where the lord is bringing us to be unified with him
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the holy spirit is indwelling in us we are now no longer separated but united with christ
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we are alive in christ and so you start to understand some of that language there
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okay so paul offers a few things he offers five scriptural truths that solidify the fallen
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condition of man so in that passage of scripture that we just read there's really five things in
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in a list. It's none are righteous is number one. Number two is none understands. Number three is
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none seeks for God. Number four is all have turned aside. Number five is none do good or none who
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there is none who do good. Not even one is what he says. There's a sense of totality that comes
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with this passage of scripture. It's essentially the human in thought and word and deed is
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completely uh shut off to an interest in god we are incapable of operating from a motive to please
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god we are incapable because we are what we are spiritually dead and spiritual faithfulness cannot
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precede spiritual life i'm going to say that and i want you guys if you're going to write anything
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down listening to this episode you want to memorize anything this is the line okay spiritual
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faithfulness cannot precede spiritual life. So Paul is making an observation of the deadness
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of a man's soul, meaning you're not going to be able to act to produce a spiritual reaction
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if you're spiritually dead. You need to be made spiritually alive first in order to produce
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spiritually faithful responses to god and so again these descriptions that paul's offering
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here are descriptors of those who are outside of christ that are still dead uh in their trespasses
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and sins they are that word in ephesians chapter 2 dead is nekros in the greek it means corpse
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unresponsive dead not sick no it's dead they are all together separated from the life of god
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and like a corpse they cannot hear they cannot see they cannot understand they cannot move
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they cannot operate they are utterly incapable to responding to the gospel which is a spiritual
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faithfulness. They can't respond to the gospel, which is a spiritually faithful act without first
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a spiritual resurrection. You might hear R.C. Sproul talking about this a lot,
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is that regeneration must precede faith, meaning that you must be first spiritually born again
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before you can exercise faith. That is saving faith that trusts in Christ alone.
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and this is a different type of faith right this isn't this isn't the type of
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faith where we are you know probable calculations of faith where we are you
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know we have faith that if I hop in my car today that I'm not gonna die because
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you know there's mathematical equations that we do in our minds and
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experiential data that we take and go oh I have faith that I'm that's a
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different type of faith saving faith is really the relinquishing of the
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authority of your life to Christ, trusting in him to be righteous and to earn that salvation
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that you cannot earn on judgment day. It's not even a concept that you can comprehend until
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you've been made spiritually alive. And so let's break down these five characteristics of the
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spiritually dead. And I think you guys will start to grasp some of this. Number one, there is none
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righteous, not even one. This is taken from Psalm 14 verses one through three and also Psalm 53
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verses one through three. And this is Paul's main clause. And it's really an attempt to demonstrate
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the total and universal need for justification. It's the condemnation of the law. No one is
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righteous. We need an alien righteousness given to us through faith. Now, if none are righteous
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and they need to search for the means of justification
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the seven different ways, maybe not seven, but many different ways that are getting this point
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across to the Jews and to the Gentiles that they are equally condemned before the moral law. Then
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he says this line, there is none who understands. And as I said earlier, spiritual comprehension
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first requires spiritual life. Spiritual comprehension first requires spiritual life.
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we have some passages that i'm going to put up on the screen here first corinthians 2 14 says
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the natural person does not accept the things of the spirit of god for they are folly to him and he
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is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned essentially you can't
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understand spiritual realities you can't uh accept the things of the spirit of god if you're
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spiritually dead no you need to be made spiritually alive so that you can accept the things and and
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you can understand the things that you have accepted so again spiritual life needs to be
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needs to precede spiritual faithfulness spiritual life needs to precede spiritual actions
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and so when someone believes it's because they've already been born again they think that they're
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choosing and in a sense they are choosing but they've been made able to choose which is essential
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for you to understand and so they've been born again of the spirit of god without their permission
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just the same way that you were born without your permission in your natural birth you are born
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again without your your permission in your spiritual birth this is basic understanding
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to the sovereignty of God over salvation, which you can read in John chapter 3. So, Paul, when
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speaking to the Christians in Ephesus about the lost, he says in Ephesians 4, 18, he says,
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they are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the
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ignorance that is in them due to their hardness of heart. Skatao is the word for darkness or
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darkened in the past tense. It really means to be blinded at the mind or blinded in mind.
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They essentially are blind intellectually. It says they are darkened in their understanding.
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I want you to hear that word understanding and just hold it for a second because we're going to
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talk about understanding a lot. So they are darkened in their understanding, alienated from
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the life of God. Okay, they're alienated from the life of God. Remember, you're spiritually dead
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because you're not connected to God. You need to be brought back to life. And the way you do that
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is a spiritual resurrection where you are now united with the source of life, which is Christ.
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And so they are currently alienated from the life of God because they're spiritually dead.
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it's a separation of the soul from the source of life, which is the Holy Spirit of God.
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Because of the ignorance that is in them due to their hardness of heart. Romans 8, 7, it says,
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for the mind that is set on the flesh, that is the natural person, is hostile to God. It's not
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interested for it does not submit to God's law. Indeed, it cannot. End quote. I'm just going to
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read it again because I want you guys who are struggling to believe that God saves people
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without their permission to understand the state of biblical anthropology so you can grasp the
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reality of what it means to be spiritually dead so that you can appreciate your salvation that
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you did not choose it, but God chose you. It is again, Romans 8, 7, for the mind that is set on
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the flesh is hostile to God. It's disinterested, right? For it does not submit to God's law. It
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does not. Indeed, it cannot, end quote. Okay, now I'm going to move on to some Jesus stuff here. So
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Matthew 13, 19 through 23, Jesus is sharing the parable of the sower. I think this will be helpful
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for a lot of people. We can see the understanding that the only people who have spiritual understanding
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So I'm gonna talk about this for quite a bit here.
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This proves that people can hear and understand.
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verse 20, as for what was sown on rocky ground, this is the one who hears the word and immediately
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receives it with joy. Yet he has no root in himself, but endures for a while. And when
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tribulation or persecution arises on account of the word, immediately he falls away. I'm going to
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stop right there. This is essentially a, what theologians would call a spiritual miscarriage.
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there wasn't a full birth and there's mystery here we don't understand why god permits these
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things to happen but this is a reality that people hear the word there seems to be some
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sort of outward sanctification but then there is a falling away it's because they were never saved
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we know that uh first john i think it's chapter five uh john is telling to people that have been
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apostating from the church if they were part of us they would have stayed with us but since they
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left us. They're not, it's evidence that they're not of us, that they were never of us is what it
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says. And so this is, we know that he who began a good work and you will finish it, that Jesus is
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the author and finisher of your faith, that Jesus says, my sheep know me, they follow me, they hear
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my voice, I give them eternal life, and they will never perish. We know all these passages and the
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perseverance of the saints. But right here, we see that there's some sort of outward sanctification
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of hearing the gospel, having some sort of comprehension of that without it actually
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producing true, full, physical, spiritual resurrection. And so I'm going to jump back
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into verses 22 here. It says, as for what was sown among the thorns, this is the one who hears
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the word, but the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches choke out the word
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and it proves unfruitful. As for what was sown on good soil, this is the one who hears the word
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you don't have to just hear the word to be saved,
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Jesus recites a prophecy from the book of Isaiah foretelling the Israel's inability to grasp the
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gospel and he says quote you will keep on hearing but you will not understand you will keep on
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seeing but you will not perceive and so if what Jesus says here is true that only those who
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understand the gospel will bear fruit and prove themselves to be truly born again then how are
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we to deal with paul's statement that says that none understand i mean how are we supposed to
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understand if none understand we have a theological dilemma here right that if jesus says that we have
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to understand uh yet paul says that none understand well we have to figure out how to deal with this
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are Paul and Jesus at odds with one another? Is somebody lying or wrong in this passage of
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scripture? Of course not, right? The logical conclusion is that those who do understand
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only understand because they have been made able to understand. And that is the beauty of
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the gospel. They have been given, as Jesus would say, ears to hear, and they have been given eyes
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to see. They have been made spiritually alive and capable of comprehending and understanding
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those spiritual truths. I'm going to slide up to my notes here, back to 1 Corinthians 2.14,
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the natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him,
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and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned. That's the natural
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person, but the spiritually alive person, the person that has been born again in Christ,
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all of a sudden feels like they can see for the very first time in their life and they can hear
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and they could read the word of God and grasp it and it's new life. And this is what Jesus
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is talking about in this passage of scripture. Let me get back to my spot here.
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Matthew 13, 17, Jesus says, for truly I say to you, many prophets and righteous people
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have longed to see what you see and did not see it and to hear what you hear and did not hear it.
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Now, right before this verse, Jesus says, quote, he who has ears, let him hear. Then the disciples
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came and said to him, why do you speak to them in parables? And he answered to them, quote, to you,
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it has been given to know or to understand the secrets of the kingdom of heaven, but to them,
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it has not been given for to the one who has more will be given and he will have an abundance
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but from the one who has not even what he has will be taken away verse 13 this is why i speak
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to them in parables because seeing they do not see and hearing they do not hear nor do they
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understand indeed in their case the prophecy of isaiah is fulfilled that says quote you will
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indeed hear but never understand and you will indeed see but never perceive for this people's
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heart has grown dull and with their ears they can barely hear and their eyes they have closed
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lest they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears and understand with their heart
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and turn and I would heal them, but blessed are your eyes for they see and for your ears for they
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hear. So this is, this is about people that are completely depraved and can't understand and can't
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see and can't hear and can't grasp the gospel message. But the people that do understand and
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do hear and do see need to realize that the only reason they do is not because they're smarter or
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they're wiser or they're more spiritually able no all of us are equal none understands none is
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righteous none seeks for god is what paul is saying here no we do these things only because
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we have been made able to do so god sovereignly without our decision without our permission came
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in and regenerated our heart gave us new life restored us so that we can see that we can hear
00:31:36.080
so that we can understand from the heart turn that jesus would heal them and so um ultimately
00:31:43.120
understanding the gospel is essential evidence of a born-again believer and this doesn't mean
00:31:52.000
that saved people need to understand theology no but it does mean that they're going to understand
00:31:58.240
the holiness of god the sinfulness of the state of man our need for forgiveness and their need to
00:32:04.400
to have an alien righteousness imputed to them by faith.
00:32:22.540
and you gave your sin to Christ to pay for it on the cross,
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and he gave his righteousness to you through faith
00:32:34.740
And so to not understand these things is to not bear fruit
00:32:39.180
and to not bear fruit is to be a sign of not being saved.
00:32:46.820
And this is why individuals who might have all this time
00:32:54.020
and all over the world actually aren't even saved
00:32:58.940
They understand moralism, they understand religiosity,
00:33:04.600
Okay, the next point we're hitting is none seeks for God.
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We're spiritually blind, we're spiritually dead.
00:33:52.620
Again, this point, just think about this point, guys.
00:33:59.080
none seeks for God. And so seeking is also indicative of desire. We seek what we desire.
00:34:07.120
We know this is true. In short, we don't seek God because we have no desire for God. We have
00:34:11.960
no desire for being saved. You have to remember that a lost person has no desire to be saved,
00:34:18.340
none whatsoever. The only way they will be saved is that they hear the gospel,
00:34:23.120
which is the midwife to the new birth, because we know faith comes by hearing and hearing by
00:34:28.600
the word of Christ. And we know that this is the only means by which salvation can come about
00:34:32.660
is the gospel. You don't need to teach people about evolution. You don't need to teach people
00:34:36.220
about the big bang theory. You don't need to defend against all these other religious views.
00:34:41.120
What you need to do is preach the gospel. It's the only thing by which a man can be saved.
00:34:45.240
And in that gospel preaching, God will open up the eyes and the ears and give life to those who are
00:34:52.520
his to his sheep his sheep will hear his voice and they will come to him and so um we have no desire
00:35:02.120
uh lost people have no desire for god and specifically his lordship and rule in their
00:35:08.120
life now i want to say something when you say a lot like this someone recently talked to me about
00:35:12.280
this when i say lost the historic meaning of a lost person is a lost sheep now there are people
00:35:20.440
people, according to the scriptures, that are not receiving mercy, meaning that they are not going
00:35:27.840
to be regenerate, that God has not foreknown them, that God has not predestined them, that God has
00:35:31.920
not elected them. And so when you speak to the lost, you're not speaking of all people who are
00:35:38.200
lost, you're speaking of those people who are God's sheep, but are lost. And so our hope is to save
00:35:44.540
the lost is to save the lost sheep. But God is not extending mercy to all people. He's extending
00:35:50.660
mercy to some. So there's no injustice here with God. There's just justice and mercy because every
00:35:56.700
one of us deserves hell, but we're not going to all receive hell because God has extended mercy
00:36:01.220
to some which are his sheep. Now, again, we have no desire specifically for his lordship or rule
00:36:08.000
our life we know psalm 119 155 says salvation is far from the wicked for they do not seek your
00:36:16.880
statutes now this of course also obliterates the ridiculous idea of seeker sensitive churches or
00:36:28.080
you know the seeker sensitive movement when we believe that people seek god we do a couple things
00:36:34.960
first, we elevate the state of man beyond what the scriptures say. None seek for God. There is
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00:36:44.120
nobody that's coming to the church that is seeking God unless they are already saved. None seeks for
00:36:51.420
God. Now, is there a drawing? We know that Jesus says that no man can come to me unless the Father
00:36:58.200
who sent me draws him. There's an argument to be had there. We don't know the distance between
00:37:04.440
the beginning of a drawing and the regeneration of the heart.
00:37:10.160
but we will bank on the clarity of none seeks for God
00:37:13.780
because when we have something that's mysterious
00:37:28.020
is due to some lack of theological information,
00:37:47.120
And they use all these means other than the gospel.
00:37:51.820
we try to use emotion and intellect to save people.
00:37:59.440
And there's all these people that are in the church
00:38:01.520
that have came to church, but never came to Christ because they never heard the gospel,
00:38:04.960
because the pastor there was trying to persuade them with emotion and intellect to have a grasp
00:38:09.560
with their mind of the gospel, that they heard the gospel, but they didn't understand it from
00:38:13.500
the heart. They didn't turn from their sin and they are not born again. And this is obviously
00:38:18.560
out of step with Paul's approach to saving souls, to evangelism, right? We know that Paul
00:38:27.500
and the other apostles always, always wounds with the law and heals with the gospel.
00:38:34.460
They always wound with the law and heal with the gospel. We know that there needs to be a bad news,
00:38:40.280
good news gospel. The good news is not good if the bad news isn't bad. And that's essential for
00:38:45.480
us to teach the bad news that they are under the wrath of God, condemned by their disobedience to
00:38:50.760
the moral law. And if they don't repent in turn, they will not be righteous. They need to have the
00:38:56.660
righteousness of Christ imputed to them by faith. And so, you know, this is essential for us to
00:39:04.040
grasp. Now, this doctrine that states that no man seeks for God, again, presents a biblical dilemma,
00:39:11.360
similar dilemma that we had before when we were talking about understanding. The Bible is filled
00:39:16.320
with passages telling people to seek God or telling them to draw near or telling them to seek
00:39:21.440
the kingdom or to make a decision or to choose or whatever it may be to obey. And so if Christ
00:39:28.540
calls us to seek, and yet Paul tells us that none seek, we have that dilemma again. That dilemma
00:39:36.360
is only overcome by understanding the reality that if God is calling people to seek, it's not
00:39:42.380
because we have the ability within us to do so. It's that we actually have to have the ability
00:39:47.900
given to us. We have to be made able to seek because none seek. And so this is the mystery
00:39:54.980
of the sovereignty of God over regeneration and salvation. This is why Jesus says in John 6,
00:40:03.720
44, no one can come to me unless the father who sent me draws him and I will raise him up on the
00:40:10.160
last day. So Jesus confirms man's inability to seek him without God first extending grace
00:40:17.280
and opening their hearts and eyes and minds to seek Jesus.
00:40:24.180
for you to understand that you don't choose Jesus,
00:40:52.260
And so Augustine in the fourth century once said,
00:41:01.220
Now I'm gonna give you guys the regular English version,
00:41:14.520
And so, in other words, Augustine understood that scripture calls man to do things which he cannot do unless God gives him the grace to do them.
00:41:25.940
And that's why he's saying, give me the grace to do as you command and command me to do the things that you desire.
00:41:32.600
And so, this is essential for us to grasp that God commands us to do things that we can't actually do unless God actually gives us the ability to do them.
00:41:42.780
And that's why so many people get tripped up and they believe that we have this free will to choose, when in reality we don't. We have to rest on these truths here. These are clear doctrines that none understand. No one seeks for God. None are righteous. No one can do good. All have turned aside. These are essential truths. And the only way that we do understand, that we do seek, that we do do good, is because we've been made able to do good already by the Holy Spirit.
00:42:10.200
So Paul summarizes the results of man's lostness in verse 12.
00:42:15.540
And that's where I'm going to cover our fourth and fifth point,
00:42:31.500
So Paul has dealt with their state of unrighteousness.
00:42:34.820
He's dealt with their disordered heart and affections,
00:42:37.100
their intellectual blindness, their disinterested spiritual posture. In this last point,
00:42:42.580
he shows their diversion or departure from God's way, right? All have turned aside.
00:42:49.060
There's some Old Testament scripture that often, if you've read your Old Testament,
00:42:54.080
you're a stiff-necked people, you've turned aside. I can't essentially guide you,
00:42:59.920
is what God's saying to these people. There is, in Proverbs 14, 12, we know the passage says,
00:43:15.660
All have turned aside together, they've become useless.
00:43:19.760
Ultimately, we learn a simple truth from this text.
00:43:33.500
And so this is a statement of reality here.
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00:43:38.180
As a result of their lostness, they have become useless.
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00:43:45.500
Namely, they cannot carry out the very thing
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00:43:53.320
They cannot do so because they have turned aside,
00:44:12.440
that's really in connection with his first point
00:44:22.320
what they often will do is that they'll open up
00:44:27.100
in the middle and they'll close with the passage
00:44:33.500
there is none who does good, there is not even one.
00:44:37.560
And so it's kind of a redundant or a synonymous way
00:44:42.700
there's no one who does good, there's not even one.
00:45:02.300
to the glory of God, but they are performed what?
00:45:08.500
And so the religious acts of self-righteousness,
00:45:12.780
that is bringing all of her extra food to the food bank,
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00:45:17.240
but she hates God, God looks at this and is not impressed.
00:45:23.760
This is an act of self-righteousness and moralism at best.
00:45:28.680
And this is exactly why Isaiah 64 6 says for all of us have become like one who is unclean, and all of our righteous deeds are like a filthy garment. And so even our righteous works aren't good to God. Because if they're not done to the glory of Christ, then they are done to the glory of self.
00:45:54.200
And so we need to realize that there are no good people
00:45:59.580
Now, in Christ, we actually do have the ability to do good.
00:46:08.260
motivated from a heart to serve and glorify God.
00:46:18.360
Paul closes with kind of this redundant statement of force, right? None, not even one.
00:46:26.880
In other words, that no man born of Adam is righteous and escapes the description
00:46:34.560
that Paul has laid out in these passages of scripture. Every one of us, whether we were
00:46:41.220
converted at age five, or whether we were converted at age 55, has to see that this text really is
00:46:49.640
a spiritual biography of our story. Self-love is blinding, and we often want to elevate the state
00:46:57.540
of man, that we're not as bad as the Bible says we are. We are actually worse than what we think
00:47:06.140
we are. I think it was Charles Spurgeon who said something along the lines that if someone thinks
00:47:13.460
ill of you, do not be mad at him because you are far worse than he thinks you are. The idea is
00:47:20.000
that we are absolutely worse than we think that we are. And so in a sense, we all have the same
00:47:25.800
testimony. All of us came from this, this line. Now, some of us have been given grace earlier in
00:47:32.780
and some of us have been given grace later in life,
00:47:54.740
that somehow you were this, and now you're this,
00:48:11.520
we will have a greater appreciation for the Savior.
00:48:19.980
is that when we understand the degree of tragedy
00:48:27.600
we will have a greater appreciation for the savior.
00:48:46.080
you will have a low appreciation for your salvation.
00:48:49.960
If you look at it in the sense that you actually had no hope,
00:49:02.880
You needed somebody to come bring you back to life
00:49:10.080
and you had no possible way of escaping that on your own.
00:49:17.820
from the savior, you have a greater appreciation for Christ.
00:49:21.420
And so it should cause you to be more in love with God.
00:49:25.940
It should cause you to be more indebted to his grace
00:49:30.700
Now we obey, not because it makes us righteous.
00:49:56.840
He said, lost in the darkness, I stumble alone,
00:50:25.200
and understanding the beautiful grace of God and salvation.
00:50:32.240
would you guys do me a favor and leave a review?
00:50:36.120
but if you just tap the stars in your podcast app,
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If you do write something, man, I will read it.
00:50:47.520
they're really helpful for exposing this episode and these podcasts to other individuals again
00:50:54.360
thank you for your listenership we hope you are enjoying this series going through romans
00:50:57.800
we're going to continue to sprinkle in some other topical episodes as we go through
00:51:01.380
over the next several months on that note my name is dale partridge this is real christianity