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Total Depravity of Mankind By Albert N. Martin

This message also is the introduction to series "Doctrines of Grace" a five part series.

The subject matter that has been assigned to me in this conference,
and it has been assigned,
takes into its compass three of the main areas of doctrine
that are commonly identified with the five points of Calvinism.
I am to speak this evening on the subject of total depravity,
tomorrow evening, God willing, on the subject of God's sovereign,
electing grace, and the closing evening of the conference
on the subject of the perseverance of the saints,
and both the certainty and the necessity of the same.
Now those of you who are in any way familiar with these matters
know that they are tied together,
that they are inseparably related one to the other.
However, it's unfortunate that the impression given to people
who do not take the time to study out the matter
is that Calvinism is some kind of a cult
which hangs onto the coat strings of the Geneva Reformer,
and its five points in particular are some kind of a monstrous
five-angled system of logic imposed upon the freedom of Holy Scripture
to hold it in its clutches.
Now that's just not true, and yet it's amazing how intelligent men
who ought to know better will present that impression
when they write and speak on the subject.
For basically, as many of you are aware,
the five points as such did not originate with Calvin,
but because there was a group within the Dutch church
who rejected the orthodoxy that came out of the Reformation
and had become rooted in the Dutch church,
presented areas of five objections,
a national synod was called,
known historically as the Synod of Dort in 1618,
at which time a number of scholars and professors
and theologians and preachers grappled with these objections
of the group who followed Jacob Arminius
and were later called the Remonstrants,
and after examining their objections in these five areas of doctrine,
not only rejected them as unscriptural,
but then positively asserted these peculiar areas of truth,
and they have then come down to us as the so-called five points of Calvinism.
Now there is a relatedness to these matters,
and we should not be embarrassed that there is.
As Spurgeon once said, and I now quote from him,
to affirm of any human production that it contained many great
and instructive truths which it would be impossible to systematize
without weakening each separate truth
and frustrating the design of the whole
would be a serious reflection upon the author's wisdom and skill.
How much more to affirm this of the word of God?
Systematic theology is to the Bible what science is to nature,
to suppose that all the other works of God are orderly and systematic,
and the greater the work, the more perfect the system,
and that the greatest of his works,
in which all his perfections are transcendently displayed,
should have no plan or system, is altogether absurd.
If faith in the scripture is to be positive,
if it is to be consistent with itself,
if it is to be operative and abiding,
it must have a fixed and well-defined creed.
No man can say that the Bible is his creed
unless he can express it in words of his own."
Granting the truth of everything that Spurgeon affirms in this statement,
that there is an interrelatedness of doctrine,
not because men have taken areas of truth
which stand independent of each other
and fused them together with artificial logic.
No, no.
This unity and interrelatedness of truth is the very essence of truth.
And this is also true when we come to consider these basic areas of doctrine.
But having said all of that,
I want to affirm with equal clarity and emphasis
that every facet of the so-called five points of Calvinism
stands or falls on the basis of its own biblical material.
And you and I are obligated to receive nothing
because it seems to be an inescapable logical inference of something else.
No, no.
We are bound as the people of God to receive nothing
but what is expressly taught in text of scripture,
handled in their context,
and set in the larger context of the entire spectrum of the word of God.
And convinced that that is so,
I welcome the opportunity to handle three of these areas of truth
independent of each other,
though seeking to show in the progression of our study
something of the interrelatedness of them.
So much, then, by way of introduction.
Tonight, the subject before us is the doctrine of total depravity,
or, if you want a little more popular title,
how desperate is the plight of fallen man.
As we approach the subject,
we shall do so under three main headings of consideration.
First of all, the importance of having right views of sin.
Secondly, the essence of the doctrine of total depravity.
And thirdly, the implications of the doctrine of total depravity.
First of all, then, the importance of the biblical doctrine of sin.
Now, here it is, a lovely Monday night, a bit cold.
I guess your spring has sprung up and went somewhere else, like ours.
In fact, I've got wind burn on my forehead,
and I'm conscious of it as I preach from standing out at the windblown Newark Airport today
in what's felt to be the forewarning of some kind of a blizzard or something that might come our way.
But here it is, a Monday night.
You're weary from a full weekend. You could be doing a lot of things.
Isn't this a rather foolish, unsound, from a psychological standpoint, way to start a conference,
to have people come out to consider this gloomy, dreary doctrine of total depravity?
Why, the very words just drip with gloominess, don't they?
Is your pastor having Monday morning blues when he drew up this schedule?
Why consider such a theme, especially at the outset of a conference?
Why not sort of hold it to the middle when you've gotten people all excited and enthused
and sort of slip it in when they aren't looking?
It's a good question.
I've asked that. Why should I stand in the first night of the conference and announce this as my subject?
All jesting aside, may I suggest two very basic reasons which I trust will convince you
of the tremendous importance of having right views of the biblical doctrine of sin.
First of all, the biblical doctrine of sin is the foundation upon which the biblical doctrine of salvation is built.
Everything that the scripture reveals concerning God's gracious design to save sinners,
all the way from the purposes locked up in his electing grace in eternity
to the full fruition of that in eternity when that great multitude
whom no man can number out of every tribe and kindred and tongue and nation
is found glorified in his presence.
I say everything that comes within the compass of God's gracious design to save sinners
from eternity to eternity rests upon the assumption of the biblical teaching concerning
man's terrible malady in a state of sin.
Christianity is essentially a sinner's religion.
For its focal figure the Lord Jesus said in terms that the common people could understand,
I came not to call the righteous but sinners to repentance.
They that behold have no need of a doctor but they that are sick.
The great apostle said it is a faithful saying and worthy of all
acceptation that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.
Therefore, if the teaching of the word of God on this issue is blurred, misstated,
understated, or overstated, it will not be long before everything that is distinctive
to Christianity as a supernatural saving religion will crumble and be brought to naught.
I'm not just throwing out words to fill up time and I'm looking closely at my notes
because I want to say it right as I've tried to bring into a narrow and succinct way
the tremendous importance of this doctrine.
Because Christianity is a sinner's religion and all that the Bible teaches about salvation
is founded upon the Bible's doctrine of sin, let that doctrine of sin be blurred,
misstated, understated, or overstated, and in time all that is distinctive
of true saving religion will crumble.
If man isn't quite the bad creature the scripture says he is,
maybe he doesn't need quite so unique a savior.
It's only people who hold tenaciously to the biblical doctrine of man's depravity
that feel themselves desperately in need of a savior who is something more than a man,
even the most unique of men.
They know that if they are to be saved it must be one who is above them in power,
outside of them in purity, and yet near them in the identity of his true humanity
and the doctrine of Christ which is the cornerstone of Christianity.
The uniqueness of this God-man will only be maintained where the biblical doctrine of sin is maintained.
And historically this can be proved that when men began to relinquish the hard biblical doctrine
of total depravity it wasn't long before they gave up a unique supernatural savior.
Likewise, if man is not quite as bad as the scripture says he is,
maybe he doesn't need a personal supernatural application of divine power
called in scripture regeneration.
Maybe some kind of a general influence of the Holy Spirit will help him out of his dilemma.
Maybe something short of the impartation of divine life in a direct ministry of the Holy Ghost will meet his need.
And so the biblical doctrine of regeneration is not long maintained
where inadequate views of sin take root.
And so we could carry on to every other major doctrine of scripture.
How important is the biblical doctrine of sin?
I say it is the foundation upon which the biblical doctrine of salvation is built.
And if you cherish what the Bible teaches about saving grace,
you must commit yourself to embracing and tenaciously clinging to that which the scriptures teach about man in a state of sin.
And then the second reason, and this makes it even more personal,
there must be some measure of understanding of your sinfulness
if you are to have genuine experience of God's salvation.
I would never presume to say how much understanding a man or woman must have of his sinfulness.
But I don't think God wants us to always be trying to find the minimum that is necessary,
but rather we should have the maximum mentality.
What does God in his word require us to think of ourselves and to preach to others as their true state in sin?
Bishop Ryle, in his excellent treatise, which I commend to all of you, do you have some on the book table, Jim?
His book says really called Holiness.
In the first chapter he says, in the second paragraph,
the plain truth is that a right of sin lies at the root of all saving Christianity.
Without it, such doctrines as justification, conversion, sanctification are words and names which convey no meaning to the mind.
The first thing, therefore, that God does when he makes anyone a new creature in Christ
is to send light into his heart and show him that he's a guilty sinner.
The material creation in Genesis began with light, and so also does the spiritual creation.
God shines into our hearts by the work of the Holy Ghost, and spiritual life begins.
Dim or indistinct views of sin are the origin of most of the errors, heresies, and false doctrines of the present day.
I submit to every thinking person this very simple question.
If Christianity is a sinner's religion, if Jesus Christ came to save sinners,
if the word justification has to do with how God deals with man's problem of legal guilt,
if regeneration is God's answer to how he deals with man's state of spiritual death,
if sanctification is the word to describe that process by which God deals with the barnacles of sinfulness that cling to us,
and that process of scraping them off and gouging them out until we are made into his image,
then pray tell how can those words maintain any biblical meaning if we lose sight of the biblical doctrine of sin.
And it's amazing how in our evangelical circles there is far more consciousness today
of what the psychologist means by sin and guilt than what scripture means.
And terms have been bled of their biblical weight and import
because some people thought that it wasn't worth it to come out on a Monday night and consider such a dreary topic as total depravity.
If you would be certain that your professed participation in the salvation of Christ is something more than just a little psychological kick,
then you must take seriously the biblical doctrine of sin, not only in the beginning of your religious and spiritual experience,
but in its continuance and in its development.
So how important is the doctrine? It is as important as maintaining the biblical doctrine of salvation,
and secondly, it is as important as making sure of genuine experience of God's salvation.
Now, the second main area of our study tonight is seeking to grapple with the very essence of the doctrine of total depravity,
having considered the importance of the biblical doctrine of sin, we now address ourselves to the issue,
what is the essence of the doctrine of total depravity?
When it is asserted that scripture teaches that all the sons of Adam are totally depraved, what is meant by those words?
Well, let's start with the negative, what is not meant.
I find that in teaching, if one can clear away the caricatures, this is a most helpful means to arriving at a proper perspective.
First of all, it does not mean that men cease to be men and become mere stocks or stones.
Now, I've heard some people who in their zeal to state the doctrine of depravity have given the impression that man has ceased to be a man.
They've taken the analogy of death and they've pressed it too far.
Granted, we are spiritually dead, and we'll deal with that later, and I trust, seek to bring into focus what scripture means by that,
but it doesn't mean that man ceases to be a man. He still is a rational creature.
There are still the remains of the image of God stamped upon him in the light of his conscience.
There is still the faculty to be reasoned with, and so God addresses himself to man as a man, even in a state of total depravity.
So when we assert that man is totally depraved and say that this is the teaching of scripture, we are not saying that that means man ceases to be a man and becomes a stone.
Nor in the second place are we saying that man is as bad as he could possibly be intensively.
That is, we are not saying that every man has gone to the fullest expression of his evil potential.
No, that would be contrary to the teaching of scripture. Romans chapter 1, three times, says,
Wherefore God gave them up. Wherefore God gave them up. Wherefore God gave them over.
You see, extensively as we shall see, man is totally depraved. Every department of his being is affected by sin, but not intensively.
We do not say that every man is as wicked as he could possibly be. No, no, that is not the teaching of scripture, nor is it the teaching of those who hold to this doctrine of total depravity or seek to express the teaching of scripture in those words.
In common grace, through such medians as human government, parental restraint, the naggings of conscience, many other things, God restrains much of the potential evil in each man and in the world if that didn't happen, if God were to take away those restraints for one moment of time.
This whole world would burst at its seams.
Now, we're not saying that every man is as evil as he could possibly be, nor are we saying in the third place that man does nothing that is good in any sense whatsoever.
When a nurse is unconverted, a stranger to grace, tenderly cares for a patient in physical need, she is doing something that is good as far as you consider her action as it relates to the patient's physical need and her loving concern to meet that need.
She has done a good deed. Sure. We're not saying there is no civil good, there is no neighborly kindness. No, we're not asserting that at all.
Well, you say you're giving an awful lot away, aren't you? No, I just don't want to maintain things that scripture won't help us with or it will not clarify the issue.
Well then, what do we mean? If we don't mean that man has become a stock or a stone, if we don't mean he's as bad as he could possibly be, if we don't mean he never does anything good in any sense whatsoever, what do we mean?
I come back to the words extensive and intensive. Man's involvement in sin is extensive so that there is nothing to commend him to God legally and nothing to move him to God personally.
That's the best way I know to express it. When we assert that scripture teaches that man is totally depraved, we are saying that if he is to stand before the bar with God, there is nothing that he can plead in his defense legally,
and there is absolutely nothing in him in any department of his being that would move him toward God personally.
In other words, sin has affected man in two areas. It has brought upon him a legal problem and a personal problem.
On the one hand, he has guilt, and on the other hand, he is polluted. Let me illustrate. Here's a fellow who's out in a wayside bar, and he gets himself loaded with about 17 to minutes.
And he takes off in his car, and coming around the corner, he fails to negotiate. And he runs his car into a tree, and he blacks out.
A few minutes later, someone's driving by, and they see the thing, and they call the police, and the police come by, and when they open the door, out reeks this smell of alcohol.
They know here's a guy who's been driving his car drunk immediately. They know there's a legal problem.
He's guilty before the court of driving under the influence of intoxicating beverages. He's got a legal problem.
If he's run into the pole and it's on your property, he may have added legal problems. You may sue him for property damages and all the rest.
If he has passages in the car, he may be liable. He has all kinds of legal problems, but he's got some personal problems, too.
The fellow's drunk. He's out cold. He doesn't know where he is. He can't get himself out. He may have a six-inch gash across his forehead. He can't sew it up. He doesn't even know it needs sewing up.
He's insensitive to his present situation. You see, this poor fellow not only has a legal problem, but he's got a personal problem.
Now, this is what sin has done to us. It has involved us in a problem with relationship to the court of God and also with relationship to our own hearts and lives and natures.
Now, concerning the first problem, the legal problem, most of God's people are relatively clear that no man has anything to commend himself to God legally.
Therefore, if a work is to be a good work in God's sight, it must involve at least three things. It must proceed from a right motive, it must have a right end in view, and it must be performed according to a right rule.
A right motive, a right end, and a right rule.
Now, the only motive that is acceptable to God is love to him. Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, mind, soul, and strength.
The only right end is the glory of God. In fact, God says that even in those activities when we are most like the animals, and when are you most like your cat or dog? When you're feeding your face.
He's on all fours, and you're sitting using your front tube. But you're most like the animals when you're feeding your face.
And yet God says whether you eat or drink, even in those most earthly, sensual appetites and meeting them, or whatsoever you do, moving from the most beast-like activities upwards and outwards to every other sphere of human activity to all to the glory of God.
Man was made to reflect the glory of God, and so the end that his creatures should have in view is to bring glory to him in the totality of life.
Then a work is a good work when it springs out of love to God, to the end that God may be glorified, and when it is done according to a right rule.
And the only right rule is the law of God. God expressing his will for his creatures in clearly defined precepts.
Now when you view anything that man does in a state of sin by that standard, then you must say with the Isaiah, all our righteousnesses, all the best performances are as filthy rags in the sight of God.
Let's go back to that nurse who's doing a good deed in ministering to that patient. Why is she doing it? She may be doing it out of genuine concern for that patient.
But if she does it with no regard to the law of her Creator, with no desire to express the glory of her Creator, and with a heart devoid of love to her Creator, even her best deeds are sin.
That's why scripture says in Proverbs that the very plowing of the wicked is sin.
The prayer and sacrifice of the wicked are an abomination unto God. What can be more pleasing to God than sacrifice? That's what he required in the old economy.
Yet the writer says that when it comes from the evil man, the man whose heart is estranged from God, from love to him and from desire for his glory, and brings that sacrifice with a heart submissive to his will, that very act that God requires becomes sin when viewed by the standard of Almighty God.
And so most of us are clear in this area that man is totally depraved in that there is nothing he can bring to God as a commendation legally.
Perhaps the most clear statement of this in all of scripture is Romans 8 and verse 8. So then, they that are in the flesh cannot please God. They can't please him.
For everything that they do, their noblest deeds must come through that fleshy principle that is centered himself instead of in God.
Now moving to the second area. Not the indictments against this drunken driver that will come from the court, but now the gash on his head, his unconsciousness.
What state or condition is he in? And it's in this area that there is such woolly thinking in our own day.
When we assert the total depravity of man, we are saying that scripture teaches that there is no department, no faculty of man that has been insulated against the effects of sin.
If I take the glass of water that's before me tonight and I drop in three drops of arsenic, that water is totally poisoned.
I could have dropped in six drops if I had it, or ten drops. But whether one drop, two or three, once that poison is diffused through the entire glass of liquid, that liquid is totally defiled.
There is no part of the liquid unaffected by the arsenic. And so the scripture presents us with this terrible picture that man who came from the hand of his creator, righteous and upright,
is now a creature, stained, defiled, polluted, depraved in the totality of his entirety.
I need not convince you that sin has done this to the body and to the physical appetites.
I am not speaking in any way to depreciate the beauty of man as he came from the hand of his gods.
I am not speaking to foster a cult of asceticism. God made man a sensuous creature in the pure sense.
He made him with physical appetites, the appetites of food, the appreciation for beauty, for sex.
And as God looked down upon this, it is said in scripture that God beheld what he made and it was good.
And God was just as pleased when he beheld Adam embracing Eve as he was when Adam looked into his face when he appeared to him and walked with him in the garden in the cool of the day.
But when sin entered and man cast off God as his governor and as the end of his existence, his bodily appetites in great measure became his God.
So that now scripture says in 1 John 2, for all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life is not of the Father but is of the world.
Paul says in Ephesians chapter 2, we were those who were filling by nature the desires of the flesh and of the mind.
I find it impossible to conceive what it would have been like to see the world filled with creatures with all the normal appetites that we have and yet not one of them, out of harmony with God, forever fulfilled at the expense of one's fellow creature.
What would it have been like? Well, that's the way it's going to be in the world to come.
But now what a terrible picture, where man in the pursuit of gratifying his physical appetites will do so with no regard to the law of God, no regard to the rights of his brother that tramples under foot all that is holy and all that is good, just so long as he can gratify his physical appetites.
So I need not labor the effects of sin in the body. I trust I don't need to labor the effects of sin from the mind, but I will have to pause here perhaps a little longer than dealing with the body.
The mind, the faculty of understanding, what has sin done to it? We live in the day when man prides himself in the accomplishments of his mind.
We had a young man in our assembly, a brilliant young fellow, he went through one of the local engineering schools and outside of one course that he got maybe an A minus in or something because he was sick.
He would have had the highest grades if anyone ever went through that engineering school in all of its history.
Now he's in a graduate program, pulling straight A's, going into the field of computer science, and he was telling me the other day that the modern computer can perform in one hour what it would have taken a competent physicist working on one equation per second,
working twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, a hundred years to accomplish.
Well, my head started spinning. I had to grab the wheel. We were driving somewhere and I was going to preach at a meeting with a group of college students.
See what man's mind has developed when he was able to put together the digital computer so that now, in one hour's time, that computer can do the work that a competent physicist would take a century to do.
No wonder. Knowledge is just expanding and exploding. Look what the mind of man has wrought.
I get into college groups and talk to college students about the fact that God says your mind was never given to be an originator of truth or even a discoverer of truth, but a receptor of revealed truth in all how this pushes them.
They can't stand it. Wait a minute. My mind is nothing about anything. My mind is God. It will make pronouncements. It will come to conclusions about everything.
What are the effects of sin upon the mind? Obviously there are some effects. If sin has permeated the entirety of man's being, listen as I quote from several very clear scriptures.
In Romans chapter 3 beginning with verse 10, the apostle says,
As it is written, there is none righteous, no, not one. There is none that understandeth. The mind is dark.
There is none that understandeth. Understandeth what? Physics? Oh no, they understand physics. Or much about physics.
Understandeth some of the laws that God has locked up in the earth. Oh no, they understand. There is none that understandeth. Understandeth what?
Understandeth the most basic thing a man needs to understand and know who God is, what he is, how he may know God.
The next part of the verse goes on to say, There is none that seeketh after God. If they understood who they were and who he was, then they'd know that the only thing that really mattered in life was knowing this God in certain.
Well, why don't they count the knowledge of God and the service of God, the primary pursuit of life? Because the mind is darkened.
That's precisely the language used in Ephesians 4 verses 17 and 18 where the apostle speaking of the Gentile world says,
and now I read from Ephesians 4 verses 7 and 18, This I say therefore, and testify in the Lord that ye henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk in the vanity of their mind, having their understanding darkened,
being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them. Vanity of the mind, understanding darkened, ignorance that is in them.
Then there is the personal activity of the devil blinding men to the glory of Christ. 2 Corinthians 4, For in whom the God of this world hath blinded the minds of men which believe not,
lest the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them. What is the peculiar point at which the devil blinds the minds of men?
He's not concerned to blind men to how to make digital computers. That'll puff up their pride. Look what man hath wrought!
He's not concerned to blind the minds of men to harnessing even the forces of the atom to destroy one another or to turn out millions of kilowatts of electricity because then man can say,
Look at the power we now harness! See? Man's still God. The devil knows if man ever gets a sight of the glory of God that burst forth in the face of Christ, it'll shatter his power,
he'll bow God-hating heart and put him in the dust, gladly accepting his place as a creature before his great Creator. And so the God of this world blinds the minds of men to what Paul tells us.
Lest the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should dawn upon them. That's the point at which he is committed to blinding the minds of men.
And then there is that clear statement in 1 Corinthians chapter 2 and verse 14 where the Apostle Paul says,
The natural man, the man who only has what he got from his mother and father in natural birth, receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, that is, he does not receive them with relish and make them the substance of his heart and life.
The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God. Why? They are foolishness unto him. Now notice, neither can he know them. The word can is a word of ability.
I'm trying to teach my eight-year-old son that every time he says to me, Daddy, can I do something? I say, Do you mean? Are you able? Or do you have permission to?
Well, Daddy, what I mean is may I say, Well, if you mean may I, say may I. This is a word dealing with ability.
Neither can he know them because they are spiritually deserved. And unless there is some faculty to perceive them, there can be no perception.
If one is to see, there must not only be light upon the object that's there, there must be some faculty here in the eye, the eye functioning properly in the optic nerve, alive and registering to the brain, or there's no sight.
Take a blind man and set him out when the sun is at its zenith and turn his face upward until he feels its warm rays. But he sees no light and he has no faculty to receive it.
The natural man receives not the things of the Spirit of God. They're foolishness unto him. Neither can he know them.
And this is precisely why Jesus said to Nicodemus, Except a man be born again, he cannot see. And that word used in John 3, 3 can rightly be rendered.
He cannot perceive the things of God, the things of his kingdom. So sin has affected the mind.
And then it has done its devastating work in the affections of men, the faculty of loving, desiring, adhering, longing. What has happened to this faculty within man?
I go back again to that classic passage dealing with the subject of depravity in Romans 3, verses 10 and 11.
There is none righteous, nor not one. There is none that understands it. And I think these next words are some of the saddest in scriptures.
There is none that seeketh after God.
That very thought is expanded in Jeremiah 2 where God says to the prophet, My people have committed two evils.
They have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and have hewn them out cisterns, broken cisterns that can hold no one.
The affections. Can you imagine something of the pure, ardent, holy affection with which Adam must have turned to his God before sin entered?
You get a little picture of what it will be like in the perfected state of the new heavens and the new earth when we read in Revelation 21 and 22 that they shall look upon his face.
What a picture of how the affections will be kindled to a white-hot heat and stay there and grow for all eternity.
Have you all seen the young fellow sitting before the picture of his beloved, going over a line in the countenance,
never counting at boredom to look at that same picture time after time after time after time?
I never get bored when I'm away pulling that little picture of my three children out of my wallet and looking at it. Why?
Because that's where my affections are turned.
That's what it will be in that perfected state. Not so now, is it?
None that seeketh after God. The creature who owes his very existence to his Creator, who owes his life all that he is,
who was made to find his true bliss in having his supreme affection set, or his affection set supremely upon his God.
There's none that seeketh after God.
Whatever the heart of man is, when that term is used in Scripture, it implies at least that which is the seat of a man's affection.
And what does God say of that?
Instead of being the fountain out of which there flows pure desire to God, it says it's deceitful of all things and desperately wicked.
For from within out of the heart of man proceed what love to God know, adultery, murder, pride, covetousness, wickedness, blasphemy.
Think of it.
Think of it.
That which should be, the source, the fountainhead out of which flows pure affection to God,
and all that comes forth is pollution and desire to violate his holy law.
That's what sin's done to the affections.
You have those two classic descriptions in Genesis, Genesis 6-5, that God looked down upon the earth and saw that the imaginations of the thoughts of the heart was only evil continually,
and he blocks out all but eight.
And yet he has to say after that flood, the flood didn't change man.
The imagination of his heart is evil continually.
Genesis 8 and verse 21.
Now up till now there is relative unity amongst the professing people of God.
The effects of sin in the body, the noetic effects of sin, the effects upon the mind, the effect upon the affections.
Ah, but there's one other great faculty of the human personality.
That's the will, the faculty of choice, the realm of moral decision.
And I suggest that this is the crux of the whole issue if we would understand the biblical doctrine of salvation.
For there are many who would say in no uncertain terms that though sin has cut in and radically affected the human race,
the mind and the affections of the body, there is one department that has been insulated against all the ensnaring effects of sin.
It still stands suspended in the state of neutrality to vote in the direction of good or of evil, and that is the will of man.
May I suggest to you tonight, and I'm not talking just to preachers, I'm talking to every one of you,
until you have wrestled through with serious sober thought with an open Bible this question,
what has sin done to the will of man, you'll never be clear on the great doctrine of God's salvation by grace and grace alone.
When I mention the name Martin Luther, what words immediately come to your mind?
Justification by faith. Well, you know, Luther didn't feel that the doctrine of justification by faith was the great issue of the Reformation.
Or you say, come off it now, don't throw us that kind of a Yankee curve.
Well, suppose Luther throws it at you, will you take it? I want a quote from Martin Luther.
Martin Luther wrote a book called The Bondage of the Will, and he wrote it in answer to a treatise of Erasmus called The Diatry.
Those were days of strong language. If you don't believe it, read this book and see what these gentlemen call each other at times when they get jousting with concepts of truth.
Now as Luther writes to Erasmus, this is what he says,
You alone, Erasmus, have attacked the real thing, that is, the essential issue.
You have not worried me with those extraneous issues about the papacy and purgatory and indulgences in such like trifles.
Trifles rather than issues, in respect of which almost all today have sought my blood.
You and you alone have seen the hinge on which all turns and aimed for the vital spot.
For that I heartily thank you, for it is more gratifying to me to deal with this issue.
When Erasmus put out his diatribe trying to assert that the will of man somehow had escaped the tentacles of sin's binding effect,
and though it may have been tainted or scratched, it really wasn't bound, Luther says,
Thank you, Erasmus, for doing me the privilege of cutting away all extraneous issues and going to the heart of the matter upon which all hinges.
That's a pretty strong statement from the great reformer.
In commenting upon this, the one who writes this introduction to the book was on to say,
Free will was no academic question to Luther. The whole gospel of the grace of God he held was bound up with it and stood or fell according to the way one decided it.
It is not part of the true theologian Luther holds to be unconcerned or to pretend to be unconcerned when the gospel's in danger.
And so when Erasmus would say that the will somehow escaped the totality of the depravity,
the gospel's at stake, and Luther breaks for a kind of volcanic eruption of words and exposition of scripture that leaves poor Erasmus whipped, built, and defeated.
Now, we don't want to indulge in approaching these things from any other perspective than a scriptural way and trying to illustrate it from human experience and human analogies.
So will you think with me tonight for just a moment on how ridiculous it is to view the human will as isolated and insulated from the other departments of your personality.
Suppose when you came to the table tonight your wife had two plates of food before you.
One of them was a charcoal-broiled, inch-and-a-half, prime sirloin steak.
Now, where in the world she'd get the money to buy that, you don't know, but there it was.
Because you know you don't give her that much for groceries.
But there's that steak, and next to it your favorite vegetable, and then alongside your favorite salad and a nice big baked Idaho potato.
Whatever you like on it, whether you like sour cream or chopped bacon or whatever else it is, there it is.
Now, next to it, there is a plate of exquisitely prepared fried garbage.
And in it you see a little bit of the peas and potatoes from last night, and it looks like a little bit of the hash from two nights before.
And it looks like a little bit of the, oh boy, it's got mold on it by now, but it looks like a little bit of that casserole you had last Wednesday night.
And there it is, the pile and the plate. Now you're sitting down and you're going to make a choice. Which shall you eat?
Now you've got to make a choice. Your will has got to come into operation.
Your wife says, dear, take your pick. Whatever one you start to eat, I'm going to take the other one away and give it to the dog.
So you've got to make a choice.
Well, I think most of you, the time between the pronouncement of the necessity of choice and the observation of the issues at stake,
it would be but a matter of a few seconds or maybe milliseconds before your will would act in the direction of the plate over here.
Now why? Why? May I suggest for the simple reason, number one, that once it registered in your mind what the issues were,
your mind judged the stake to be better tasting, to be more nutritious, to be more in keeping with your normal run of appetites and desires than the plate of garbage, fried garbage.
And as you thought, as you looked at the plate of fried garbage, you had an emotional reaction. It was one of revulsion.
And as you looked at that nice juicy steak, you had an emotional reaction. It was one of desire.
And maybe you even began to salivate a little bit and you even had a physical reaction.
And so in the light of what your mind judged to be good and your appetites and affections desire, your will complied.
But now, suppose you brought into that same situation a man who had been told all his life that if you ever see a piece of meat about so big around and about so thick,
never go near it, it's full of poison. And if you ever see a brown thing that's kind of soft and has a skin on it and it's split four ways and opened up and there's some yellow stuff melting in the middle, don't go near it, it'll make you sick to your stomach.
And he had been prejudiced all his life and been told that steak and potatoes and whatever other vegetable and salad you have was not good for him.
And he had been told that if in the course of your being exposed to different foods you ever see something that looks like it has this, this, this, and this, you see, his reaction of will would be totally different.
And he would look over at that piece of brown meat and that brown potato, poison it, and he'd say, I'll take that. Why?
Because the judgment of his mind upon the two things was different, and therefore the desire and affections were different, and therefore the will acted differently.
You see, in either case the will was not suspended in a state of pure neutrality to act independent of the judgment of the mind or the affections.
I suggest that scripture stamps on the very first pages of the Bible that this is how sin entered for the Bible says,
When Eve walked, Saul was pleasant to the eye, and it was good, gratify here, and desired to make one wise, then her will complied.
Her will followed suit. Her will followed suit with the judgment of the mind and with the appetites and affections of her body and of her heart.
That's precisely the way the will continues to act. When that man chooses garbage, is his will acting as a free agent, uncoerced by anything from the outside?
Yes, he's acting as a responsible creature with a will that is acting consistent with the judgment of his mind and the affections.
And in the same way sinners are not forced to sin against their will, but ah, haven't we seen that the mind is darkened when they look at holiness and righteousness and godliness?
They judge it to be poison. The worst thing a man can do is respect the law of God. That'll impede on his freedom.
The worst thing to do is to be a subject of God, but that'll make just a little nobody out of you.
And because the mind has been darkened and the affections perverted, the will will always choose in the direction of sin and of evil.
And so the whole idea that the man, the will of man is free in the sense that it's suspended above the influence of sin which is reached into the affections and into the understanding is nothing but a myth.
For if the mind is darkened to the glory of Christ, and if the affections are turned away from the person of Christ, how will the will, the will ever choose to bow to Christ?
Romans 8 and verse 7 says the carnal mind is enmity against God. It is not subject to the law of God. Neither indeed can it be.
The heart's a rebel. Men love darkness rather than light. Jesus said ye are of your father the devil and the lust of your father. It is your will to do. Whosoever committed sin is the bondservant of sin.
And if God says in Philippians 2 13 that even when a man's been regenerated by the Spirit, God must work in him to will and to do of his good pleasure. Listen.
If the man renewed by grace needs a divine operation upon his will to choose what is right, what about the man who's estranged into grace?
I've never heard anyone contending for free will who's dared to answer that question.
It is God who worketh in you, Christians at Philippi, both to will and to do of his good pleasure. There's the man regenerated who has new understanding, not perfect.
He sees through a glass darkly, but hallelujah, he sees. He's seen the glory of God in the face of Christ.
And his affections go out to Christ, whom having not seen, we love, not as perfectly as we want to, not as fully as we shall, but hallelujah.
Do you love him? Well, if a man whose eyes have been opened to see his glory and whose affections have been drawn to love him still needs a divine operation upon his will,
you're just asking too much of that dead old sinner to crank up his own, quote, free will and choose for Jesus.
No, my friend, man is a totally depraved creature. Well, then, what is the result of this terrible state?
A dreary picture, but the clear picture of scripture. I don't know any place where it's more clearly stated than in the London Confession or the same paragraph in the Westminster Confession.
Listen. Speaking of man's involvement in sin, I read from chapter 6, paragraphs 3 and 4.
They, speaking of Adam and Eve, our first parents, by their sin, fell from their original righteousness and communion with God.
And we in them, whereby death came upon all men, all becoming dead in sin and wholly defiled in all the faculties and parts of soul and body.
There it is.
Wholly defiled in all the faculties and parts of soul and body from this original corruption whereby we are utterly indisposed,
disabled, and made opposite to all that is good and wholly inclined to all evil do proceed all of our actual transgressions.
So there we stand, legally under justly deserved wrath. Ephesians 2-3, we are by nature the children of wrath,
personally held, bound in our sin, cannot receive the things of the Spirit of God.
The carnal mind enmity against God cannot be subject.
And in such a bad state that Jesus said we can't even get to the remedy of ourselves,
for no man can come to me except the Father which sent me, draw him. John 6-44.
Well, as we close our study tonight, may I just touch briefly on the implications of this doctrine?
I have twinges of conscience going over so hurriedly such vital issues, but in the interest of symmetry and trying to give some picture of the wholeness,
I hope you will forgive touching lightly on things that deserve a much more thorough treatment.
What are the implications of all of this?
Personally, theologically, ministerially, what are the implications?
If you're here tonight a stranger to God's grace, an unsaved man or woman, fellow or girl, here's the implication for you.
Jesus is a sinner's savior. He said, I didn't come to call the righteous but sinners.
You do not feel yourself hopelessly held under the canopy of divine wrath.
If you do not sense yourself unable to break the chains that bind you, then go on out and get rid of wrath your own way.
Break the chains your own way!
But if you sense tonight that you're shut up and you see that everything you've done, even your best deeds, are sinful before this holy God,
because they haven't proceeded from love to him, they haven't proceeded from a desire to glorify him,
they haven't proceeded from a conscious submission to his holy law,
and you know the acquaintance you've had of your own heart that you can't, as it were, reach in and pull out those tendencies and desires and attitudes
that are as much a part of you as the hair upon your head, then I have wonderful news for you.
And I say in the name of my savior, come ye sinners, poor and wretched, weak and wounded, sick and sore,
Jesus ready stands to save you.
Full of pity joined with power, he is able, he is able.
He is able, wait no more. Let not conscience make you linger, nor fitness fondly dream.
All the fitness he requireth is to see your need of him.
This he gives you, this he gives you, tis the Spirit's rising beam, lo, the incarnate God ascended pleads the merits of his blood.
Venture on him, venture holy, let no other trust intrude.
None but Jesus, none but Jesus can do helpless sinners good.
But oh, bless God, he does helpless sinners good.
For when we were without strength in due time, Christ died for the ungodly.
As Paul opens up the doctrine of salvation systematically in the book of the Romans,
he starts from chapter 1 verse 18 through chapter 3 verse 20 to corral the whole human race under guilt,
that he might open to us that wonderful way of acceptance with God through a substitute.
And that's the implication for you who are not saved tonight.
You are just this creature described in scripture, but it's just such that Jesus came to save you.
And the personal implication for us who have been quickened by divine grace
is that you and I ought to again and again go back over this basic doctrine.
For scripture says, look unto the rock from whence you were hewn and unto the pit from whence you were digged.
Jesus said to a woman, to his disciples, when they beheld this woman in her profuse expressions of affection,
to whom much is forgiven he loveth much.
Ask God for ever increasing understanding of the depths of your sinfulness,
for it will drive you again and again to your Savior.
And anything that drives me to him and makes him more precious is a means of grace.
Theologically the implications are clear, I trust.
This is the great issue upon which all else turns.
If you're not clear on what the scripture teaches on man's depravity,
you'll find it difficult to embrace what the scripture so clearly teaches on the doctrine of sovereign election.
For what is election but God choosing when we would not and could not?
What is particular redemption but God purchasing salvation where we could not?
What is effectual calling but God drawing when we would not or could not?
And what is perseverance but God securing our ultimate salvation when we could not?
This is why all the analogies concerning the impartation of divine life are,
and I'll use the theological term laymen ought to know it,
synergistic. That is, God alone imparts life. They are not synergistic.
There is no inference that the impartation of divine life ever comes with man's cooperation.
What are the three analogies in scripture for the impartation of divine life?
What are they?
John 3, James 1, resurrection, Ephesians 2, you had he made alive, and creation.
We are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus.
Can any man be in Christ? He's a new creation.
Now what do those three things all have in common?
Birth, resurrection, and creation.
That which is born does not contribute consciously to its birth.
That which is created does not contribute to its creation.
That which is resurrected does not contribute to its resurrection.
Now scripture does not address the development of spiritual life,
either in its initial stages, which are repentance and faith,
or the progressive process of sanctification.
God nowhere teaches that those are monergistic,
that we sit back passively and hope the Lord will live his life through us.
No, no. We're told to wrestle. We're told to strive.
We're told to fight. We're told to war.
But when God says how Christians get life,
he's careful to press the analogy of birth, of creation, and of resurrection.
And then, in the third place, the implications, ministerially,
to all of us who are concerned for the souls of men.
You'll never be a true witness and a true soul winner,
I'll use that term, I hope it isn't put in its prostituted context,
until we're gripped with the same thing that gripped the disciples.
When Jesus finished dealing with a man about how to get to heaven in Matthew 19,
you know what the disciples did?
They didn't jump the little jig and say,
Boy, let's go on out and convert Jerusalem.
When Jesus got done dealing with a rich young ruler, you know what they said?
Lord, who then can be saved?
If this is what it means, who can be saved?
You know what Jesus answered?
He says, you're reading me loud and clear, fellows.
With men this is impossible.
But, with God, all things are possible.
When we view man as scripture describes and we say,
Who can impart life to such a creature? None but God.
Then we're shut up to God to cry to him, to use the means and methods put at our disposal
so that our witnessing is God-centered, God-oriented, scripturally defined and disciplined.
And then when God imparts life, he gets the glory.
And I say to you, my preacher friends here tonight,
the implications of this doctrine of total depravity to you and to me are manifold.
If you believe men are dead,
you're running a three-ringed circus in that place where your pastor will never impart life.
It may fill the pews, but it won't impart life.
You follow me?
Filling the pews with people who have raised a hand
and made some kind of expression or response to the gospel is not the impartation of divine life.
When we're convinced that only God can impart life
and that he's chosen to use very simple means,
prayer, preaching, entreating men personally, corporately,
seeking to draw close to them and share our life with them,
then we will use those biblically simple methods and means
and shut up to God in intercessory prayer,
plead with him to grant life, and when he does,
that life will bear the stamp of deity upon it,
and to God and God alone will be all the glory.
You know, it's been an interesting thing in my own pastoral experience.
People have come and said, well, how do you know when people get saved in your church
if you don't ask them to walk the aisle and don't ask them to raise their hand?
I say, well, by their changed lives. I think that's a pretty good way to tell if people are saved, don't you?
I think that's pretty scriptural. Anyone agree with me on that?
I think that's a pretty good way to tell if somebody's gotten saved.
If any man being Christ, he's a new preacher.
And lo and behold, somebody starts showing up at prayer meetings,
Sunday night service, Sunday school, Sunday morning,
and then one night they pray out in prayer meetings and say,
Oh Lord, thank you for saving me.
And afterwards, somebody comes and says, Hey, pastor, sounds like maybe the Lord saved so-and-so.
I say, yeah, and that's something. And we didn't have to be the midwife.
Oh, beloved, I'm not belittling the wonderful opportunities that we may have
to be present at the moment when God imparts life.
I'm not belittling that. Don't anyone infer that.
But what I'm saying is, Jesus taught that the ways of the Spirit are like the wind.
The wind is an element of divine unpredictableness,
an element of divine sovereignty operating through the means that He's ordained.
And how blessed to be shut up to those means and then to see the Lord glorified in His work.
You've been a very patient audience. I just didn't look at my watch until ten minutes ago.
It's a good thing I didn't or my conscience would have bothered me.
I trust that this has been helpful and that the Lord will seal it to our hearts.
Mr. Lyon, will you come?