Tonight, we're looking at lesson two, which is the universality of sin. It's a big word. It just simply means that there is no one without sin, and sin touches everything about you, okay?
So let's look at Bible point number one. All, that's the first blank, all men have consciously violated God's law. Sometimes when someone violates the law, they'll say, "Well, I didn't know, right? I didn't know the speed limit was 30 through here, officer. I was going 60. I didn't know."
Well, all men know they're violating God's law. Their conscience convicts them. The work of the law is written on their heart, and so they know that it's wrong to steal. They know it's wrong to lie, and they do it anyway.
Because remember, we talked last week that to transgress the law is to actually go against the very character of God. It's to take what we should be giving to God, the power of our personality. Everything that God has given us should be to serve Him, should be to follow His will, should be to honor and glorify Him. But instead, we put self on the throne, right? And we use these great personal powers that God has given us to serve ourselves and to put ourselves on the throne and to do our will instead of His will.
So all men have consciously violated God's law, intentionally, willfully violated His law. They have committed acts or cherished dispositions that are contrary, that's the second blank, contrary to the moral law of God. In fact, the law of God incites within rebellious men a desire to break that law.
Have you ever been told not to do something, and something inside you says, "Well, I'm the boss of me. I'm going to do it anyway. Stop me. Make me not do it," right? Well, this sinful spirit, the state that we're in, is contrary to the moral law of God.
This universality of sin is evident from history, that's the third blank, history, from observation, that's the fourth blank, observation, and man's common experience. Experience is the fifth blank.
So let me reread that. All men have consciously violated God's law. They have committed acts or cherished dispositions that are contrary to the moral law of God. This universality of sin is evident from history, observation, and man's common experience.
The fact that everyone has sinned and it's a universal state of mankind is evident from history. Think back to, did you ever study in school the Mayans and the Aztec civilizations? Did not they do human sacrifices, right? Very gory if you think about it, but that's true in every single culture you can think of. They have a religion, right? And that religion involves having usually a priest.
It involves having sacrifices to appease an angry God or a God that's been offended, right? And they also have what they call penance, acts of contrition where you can try to earn God's favor or try to undo wrongs that you have done. And that's universal all throughout history. You see it with the Egyptians, right? You see it in the Bible. You see it, remember in Canaan, they sacrificed to the Baals, right? They offered up children to Molech, right? It's all throughout history.
History is a witness that mankind is incurably religious and he knows he's a sinner. Therefore, he has to try to make sacrifices to atone for his sins.
We see this in Acts 14:13. This is a story of where Paul is going into, and they heal a man who is crippled. And the locals there give praise to Zeus because they figure that this must be Zeus and Hermes, Paul and Barnabas. And so they decide they want to sacrifice to these pagan gods. And of course, Paul gives them the gospel. It's not Zeus and it's not Hermes, but it's the Lord Jesus Christ that this man was healed.
It says in Acts 14:13, "Then the priest of Zeus, whose temple was in front of their city, brought oxen and garlands to the gates, intending to sacrifice with the multitudes." It's just one example of many in scripture where people want to sacrifice to appease their gods, right?
So that tells us about the universal nature of sin, that all men realize they are sinners and know their sin must be dealt with, right? It's not just with history, it's with observation.
When you look around this world, like for example, let's say you turn on the evening news. What's normally talked about in the evening news? There will be natural disasters we're talking about right now, the floods and the hurricanes, of course. But you also hear a lot about men's evil toward other men. Do you not hear that? You hear about wars, right? You hear about robberies. You hear about assaults. You hear about abuse.
In fact, you hear more of the bad stuff on the news than we ever hear about the good news. And just the evening news should testify that it's very easy to observe sin in this world, is it not? In fact, it's so common, it has its own vernacular or its own language.
If you watch the news and you hear about maybe, say, someone unexpectedly does something wrong, maybe it's a figure that's beloved, you'll say, "Well, we all have clay feet," right? Maybe someone goofs up and you'll say, "Well, you know, nobody's perfect," right? If maybe someone is caught taking a bribe or in a scandal, you may say, "Every man has his price," right?
These are all sayings that we know because it's such a common observation. It's universal to the human condition that we are sinners, right? And it's not just, though, something we observe. It's something that we personally experience as well.
Look down on James 3:2, here on our page. It says, "For we, some? No, we all, what? Stumble in what? Many things." We all stumble in many ways or in many things. Every single one of us stumbles.
There was a famous missionary in the 1800s. His name was Jacob Chamberlain. And he was in India. And he was in India for over 40 years. And this man was a brilliant man. He was educated in theology and also educated in medicine. He was a medical doctor.
And he was equally skilled at both. He would start hospitals and he would start churches. And he would reason with people. The predominant religion there was a Brahmin religion, which we know is a Hindu religion, but there are also Muslims in India. And he would bring the gospel to them, whether they were in the hospital or whether they were on the street.
And one time, Dr. Chamberlain was addressing a group of men. And he was talking about the universality of sin, that we're all sinners. And one of the men there in the congregation stood up and says, "I reject your premise, Dr. Chamberlain. I am not a sinner. I don't have any correcting that I need to do or repent of."
Dr. Chamberlain was taken back by that because everybody knows they are a sinner if they're being honest. So he asked him a question. He says, "Do you think that your neighbors would have the same assessment of you?"
And almost immediately, someone stood up and said, "He swindled me in a trade for a horse." And then another person stood up and said, "He took financial advantage of a widow in our community." And the man got up and left before more accusations could be hurled against him.
So we may fool ourselves by saying we're not a sinner, but ask those around you, right? We're all sinners. That is part of our human experience that we've inherited from Adam and Eve.
The application is this. How does this doctrine, the universality of sin, help our evangelism? That's the blank, evangelism. How does it help you be able to share Christ with people? You can relate to them, right? You can say, "You know what? You're a sinner in need of a Savior, and so am I," right? You're not coming across as holier than thou.
Abigail? You can tell them they need a Savior by telling them that they are also a sinner, right? That's one of our greatest things that we can tell folks, is that they need a Savior, but they need to know what they need a Savior for, right? To be saved from their sins.
Flip over on the back. Isaiah 55:6 through 7. The prophet Isaiah says, "Seek the Lord while He may be found. Call upon Him while He is near. Let the wicked forsake his way." It's another way of saying, "Let sinners forsake their way." "And the unrighteous man his thoughts. And let him return to the Lord, and He will have mercy on him, and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon."
The fact that men need pardoning tells us that they are sinners, right? And the gospel's for everybody, right? We can make that bold proclamation. It's up to them what to do with it, what to do with that good news that they have heard.
Let's look at Bible point number two. The universality of mankind's sin is directly declared. That's the first blank, declared. And both the... the Old, that's the second blank, and New, that's the third blank, Testaments.
The universality of mankind's sin is directly declared in both the Old and New Testaments. Not only is it plainly evident from looking at history and from observing our current world and from our common experience, but in case that doesn't ring your bell, it's plainly declared so in Scripture.
I get up early in the mornings and I try to get to my first pool at 7 o'clock, and this time of the year it's actually almost a little bit dark at 7. The days are getting shorter right now. And so sometimes I'll stage my truck somewhere until it's bright enough that I can get in someone's backyard.
And there's one place in Mount Dora that I do that. It's outside of a power substation. It's one of those places that's got gravel everywhere. It's got a high-rise security fence with razor wire on top of it. And inside of it, it has these trams. It has these transformers and all this electrical stuff that I'm not sure what it is. The bus bar is on top, and you see all the electrical wires coming into it. And you can hear it.
Have you ever rolled down your windows underneath one of those? You can hear it hissing and crackling and whatnot. So it's pretty obvious what that is. It's a power substation. But if you weren't sure, they've got this giant sign posted, right? And it says, "No trespassing," and it has a legal act on it, and it tells you that this is a power substation. You're not to go inside there, right? Because what happens if you were and you were to touch something, right? You may get lit up.
Sometimes we need direct declarations of things to catch our attention. So Scripture does that in regards to the universality of sin.
1 Kings 8:46 deals with the dedication of Solomon's temple. And the very dedication of this temple, which is there for the worship of God and for the glory of God, and for the people to come and exalt Yahweh, He says in chapter 8, verse 46, "When they sin against you, because everyone sins, there's no one who does not sin, they'll be able to come here and have sacrifices made for them," right? They'll be able to come to the temple for atonement. They'll be able to call upon Yahweh and seek your mercy here at your temple.
But the preface of it is that when they sin against you, it's like human sin. Why? Because we're sinners. That's our state. And it says, "For there is no one who does not sin." It's very clear. It doesn't leave anyone out, right? We're all sinners.
Psalm 143:2, the psalmist prays, "Do not enter into judgment with your servant, for in your sight no one living is righteous." No one's righteous.
There's an old Chinese proverb, and it says that there are only two righteous men. This is apart from Christianity, of course, but it just shows their mindset. There are only two righteous men. One is dead, and the other one's not born yet.
Simply means you can look far and wide, and you're not going to find a living, righteous person because there's no one living who's righteous.
Luke 11:13, our Savior is talking to the crowds, and He says, "If you then being evil," He says, talking about if you as fathers know how to give good gifts to your children. "How much more?" You're a heavenly father. But He prefaces it saying, "If you then being evil," He says, "You're evil." That's who you are. You are a sinner. All men are born in a sinful state.
Romans 3 has so much to say about the universality of mankind's sin. Verse 10 and 12, 11 and 12, as it is written, "There is none righteous, no, not one." He's quoting from the Old Testament here, even though this is the New Testament. "There is none who understands, there is none who seeks after God." We don't seek His glory, we don't seek His ways, we seek our own ways.
"They have all turned aside. They have together become unprofitable. There is no one who does good, no, not one." And then Romans 3:23, "For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God."
So it's very clear in Scripture. Scripture doesn't tiptoe around it. It says that everyone, without exception, is a sinner. That none of us seeks after God in our natural state before Christ. None of us loves God. None of us thinks about God. We only think about ourselves.
Flip over on the back. We see this echoed again in the Old and New Testament. I want to show you a few more verses. Proverbs 20:9. "Who can say, 'I have made my heart clean. I am pure from my sin?'"
You might work sometimes in your garden or in your kitchen or out in your garage and end up with dirty hands, right? And you can go and wash underneath soap and you may have to do a lot of scrubbing. I have Gojo. Have you ever used Gojo? It has some pumice in there. It's good to get that grit off your hands when they're greasy. And you can make your hands clean, right? But who can make their sins clean? No one can. We all are dirty-handed before the Lord.
Ecclesiastes 7:20, "For there is not a just man on earth, who does good and does not sin." Not a single one.
Galatians 3:22 says, "But the scriptures have confined all under sin." Scripture lays it out pretty clearly. We've been reading scriptures to this effect that all of us are sinners.
1 John 1, verses 8 and 10, "If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves. And the truth is not in us. If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him, make God, a liar. And His word is not in us." He alone is righteous. He alone is holy. He alone is good, right?
Flip back over on the front. The application for number two is this. Do you recognize how great, that's the blank, great, your sins are? When I say great, I'm not meaning great, great as in that's fantastic, that's good. But great as in how large they are, how severe they are, how numerous they are, right?
That's why we need a vision of God's holiness. We need to look upon the face of our Lord Jesus Christ. If we compare ourselves to our neighbors or to our friends, we'll come out not so bad, right? Because they're just as bad as we are. But we need to look into the face of a holy God. And then we recognize how great our sin truly is.
Bible point number three. The universality of mankind's sin is implied in the need for atonement. That's the first blank. Regeneration. Regeneration is the second blank. And repentance is the third blank.
The universality of mankind's sin is implied in the need for atonement, regeneration, and repentance. Not only is it straightforwardly declared that you're a sinner and that your hands are dirty and that you're not righteous, but everything about the economy of salvation has to deal with us as sinners, right? We need atonement.
Look what Jesus said in John 12:47. "For I did not come to judge the world, but to what? Save the world." Christ came to make us at one with the Father, to give us atonement, right? To reconcile us to God.
John 3:3 speaks of regeneration. He tells Nicodemus, "Unless one is born again," which also can be translated "born from above," okay? "Born again or born from above, he cannot see the kingdom of God."
So you can't even see the kingdom of God unless you've been regenerated, unless you've been born again, unless you've been born from above. That speaks, the fact that we must be regenerated speaks to the fact that we are sinners and we need to be regenerated.
And so Nicodemus says, "Unless one is born again, unless one is born again, we need to be regenerated," right?
Let's look at repentance. Acts 17:30. "God commands all men everywhere to repent." All men everywhere are commanded to repent by God. The reason why all men everywhere are commanded to repent is because all men everywhere are sinners, right? It's the universality of sin. We're all sinners.
And God commands man to repent. He doesn't ask nicely. He doesn't beg. He commands repentance. It is our duty to be right with our creator, to fulfill the purpose for which He has designed us for.
And sin takes the purposes that God has given us and it puts them on the back burner, and it puts new purposes in front of us, and that's to serve ourselves, the world, the flesh, and the devil. So God commands us to repent, to change our course of action, to change our mind, to change our heart, to turn from sin, and to turn towards our holy God.
Flip over on the back. Speaking of being regenerated, John 3:16 says, "For God so loved the world."
John 6:15. "This is the bread which comes down from heaven that one may eat of it and not die." The subtext is there is you're going to die. You don't have the bread of heaven, right? So if you eat of Christ, to eat of that bread is not speaking of physical bread but it means to put your trust in Jesus Christ to be a partaker of Christ because only in Him can you have life.
Acts 4:12, "Nor is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven among men by which we must be saved." Again saying that we must be saved and there's no other name but the name of Jesus. We're all sinners. It speaks of our atonement there.
Again speaking of regeneration, John 3:5 again to Nicodemus, Jesus answered, "Most assuredly I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God." Saying again you got to be born again.
He's actually making an allusion here to the book of Ezekiel. The Bible quotes the Old Testament about 300 times fully or partially, but there's over 3,000 allusions to where He uses words that are directly lifted in connection with Old Testament passages, and this is one of those.
It's not saying that the water saves you, but as water cleanses your soul, you need to be cleansed by our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
Mark 1:14 through 15, "Now after John was put in prison, Jesus came to Galilee preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God and saying, 'The time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God is at hand. Repent and believe in the gospel.'"
Jesus started His ministry calling people to repent because everybody He came in contact with was a sinner.
Okay, let's flip back on the front. Let's look at the application. The application is this: What is mankind's greatest problem?
I think there was a vice presidential debate last night. I didn't watch it, but I saw some clips of it this morning. I was too tired last night to watch it. But I know many of you did, and you probably heard things addressed such as climate change. Is that man's greatest problem?
What about poverty? Poverty is a real problem, but is that mankind's greatest problem? Crime is a problem, but is it mankind's greatest problem? The national debt is a problem, but is that mankind's greatest problem? Did they even address mankind's greatest problem last night? No.
Our greatest problem is that we are sinners in need of a Savior, right? And so that is what our greatest problem is. We must turn to our Savior because He's the only one who can rectify it. No king, no prince, no president or vice president, no mayor, no one can solve the problem of inborn sin. Only our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
Bible point number four. The universality of mankind's sin is also proven from the condemnation. That's the first blank, condemnation resting on all unsaved men.
The universality of mankind's sin is proven from the condemnation resting on all unsaved men. In John 3:18, Jesus says, "If you don't believe in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, you're already condemned."
All sinners are already condemned. The judgment day hasn't happened, but the sentence of condemnation is upon them already. They're walking to their execution. That's why they need a Savior. That's why they need the gospel, right? That's why we must rescue the perishing.
That's a great hymn that we used to sing, "Rescue the perishing, care for the dying." It's talking about being a light in this world, sharing Christ to all. Amen. Who are condemned and stand ready for judgment.
Flip over on the back. John 3:36, the author here, John the Apostle, says, "He who believes in the Son has everlasting life, and he who does not believe in the Son shall not see life, but the what? The wrath of God abides on him."
He's condemned, and the wrath is hanging over him like a cloud, right? At any moment, it could fall down. We live in Florida, and we know that there are times when you walk outside and it's sunny, right? And so you're looking forward to getting some yard work done, or maybe you're looking forward to some recreation or riding your motorcycle or whatnot, and then just like that, what happens?
The weather turns, and the bottom drops out, and you're in a torrential downpour, right? That's what the wrath of God is like over every man. You never know when you're going to die. It's appointed for man once to die, and after this, the judgment.
Christ could also come back at any moment, right? And when He comes back, judgment comes. It comes.
Let's look over on the front. The application for number four, why must, that's the first blank, why must sinners be condemned, condemned is the second blank, by God?
Why must sinners be condemned by God? Why can't God just say, "Okay, I'm going to let you off the hook?" He's just. It's part of His holiness, right? He must uphold His holiness in practicing justice.
Abigail? He's a holy God. Exactly right. He's holy, holy, holy, so He must condemn sin. He can't let it go by, or He would not be a holy God. He would not be a just God.
Bible point number five. The universality of sin is consistent with those passages in Scripture, which at first glance seem to ascribe to certain men a goodness. That's the first blank, goodness. That renders them righteous, that's the second blank, and thus acceptable, that's the third blank, before God.
The universality of sin is consistent with those passages in Scripture which at first glance seem to ascribe to certain men a goodness that renders them righteous and thus acceptable before God.
Let's look at Genesis 6:9 talking about righteous Noah. "This is the genealogy of Noah. Noah was a just man, perfect in his generations. Noah walked with God."
How would you like that on your tombstone? A just man, righteous in your generations. Teresa walked with God. That would be a neat thing to have on your tombstone, right? That's what Noah is remembered as.
Now it sounds like, well, he must not be a sinner. He's just. He's righteous. A man who walks with God. But no, he was still a sinner. All of us are sinners, and he's no exception.
Job 1:1 is another passage that talks about a very righteous man, righteous Job. "There was a man in the land of Uz whose name was Job, and that man was blameless and upright and one who feared God and shunned evil."
Ken, how would you like that on your tombstone one day? "Ken was blameless and upright. He feared God and shunned evil." It's an awesome thing to be able to say.
What's that? Well, Job was one of those men that this is God's testimony of him, so he was relatively righteous compared to us, right? We wouldn't want that said about us because we know it's not true about us, but Job was a righteous man.
Same with Daniel. You know Daniel was a very righteous man. He was taken as a young boy away from his family, away from his nation, taken away into captivity. There he faithfully served the Lord for 50 years in a foreign court.
Look what it says in Daniel 6:4. "So the governors and the satraps sought to find some charge against Daniel concerning the kingdom, but they could find no charge or fault because he was faithful, nor was there any error or fault found in him."
Wouldn't that be nice to be said on your tombstone, right? "You're faithful. There was no error or fault found in him or her," right? That's what we remember Daniel as.
In the New Testament, Jesus talks this way very similarly about John the Baptist, right? Matthew 11:11, "Assuredly I say to you, among those born of women there has not risen one greater than John the Baptist, but he who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he."
It's almost contradictory. He says, "No one's been greater than John the Baptist, but he who's least in the kingdom is greater than he." Well, to be in the kingdom of heaven means that you have faith in Christ Jesus, and therefore you receive His righteousness, right?
So even though we would have to be hesitant to have any of these descriptions on our tombstones, we just don't feel worthy of that, right? We have the very righteousness of our Lord Jesus Christ if we're in the kingdom of heaven, right?
It's His righteousness, His works, His merits, not ours that makes us right and justified in the sight of God Almighty.
Flip over on the back. Ezekiel 14:14, Ezekiel is prophesying, and the Lord says that He's going to destroy these evil cities, and He says, "Even if these three men, Noah, Daniel, and Job were in it, they would deliver only themselves by their righteousness," says the Lord God.
He's saying, "Even if these three righteous men were in the city, it wouldn't keep me from destroying this area, destroying this vicinity. I may protect them, but everybody else is toast," is what God is saying here.
Look at Hebrews 11 in the New Testament. "By faith, this was another righteous man, Enoch. By faith, Enoch was taken away so that he did not see death. And he was not found because God had taken him. For before he was taken, he had this testimony, that he pleased God."
He pleased God. It means he was righteous, he walked with God, he was holy. But without faith, it is impossible to please Him. For he who comes to God must believe that He is, that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.
Enoch walked on this earth for 300 years. And all 300 years, he pleased God. Wouldn't that be something to be able to say, right?
But he walked by faith. And we can walk by faith as well. And we can be pleasing to God because we are in Christ Jesus, right? And because we're in Christ Jesus by faith, we hear that same testimony. "This is my beloved Son," like your grandson who was baptized, "in whom I am well pleased," right? What a wonderful testimony that was, Jimmy.
Flip back over on the front. The application is this for number five. Who is the first blank? Who is the source of our righteousness? Righteousness is the second blank.
If Noah and Job and Daniel and John and Enoch were pleasing to God, and they were pleasing to God by faith, right? Who is the source of our righteousness? Who is the source of our righteousness? Christ Jesus, right?
Even these men, while they may have been great examples, they were not perfect. They were not sinless. These men had clay feet. They put on their pants one leg at a time, just like you and I do. They woke up in the morning with stinky breath. They were flesh and blood like you and I with a like nature, sinful nature.
But they were considered righteous because they walked with God. They walked with God in faith, right? So Christ alone is the source of our righteousness.
Bible point number six. The universality of sin is a result of mankind's universally corrupted nature.
We talked last week that the nature of sin is not just an act. It's not just a cherished disposition, but it's a state. It's a state of who we are, right?
So nature is a first blank. The sinful acts of men and the sinful dispositions of men stem from the inborn, that's a second word, inborn, which means something you possess from the moment of your birth.
The inborn, sinful nature and corrupt state, state is a third blank, of all men. This is the state of all men from their first moment of being and can't be changed, that's the fourth blank, by their own power.
Let me reread that. The universality of sin is a result of mankind's universally corrupted nature. Next week we're going to talk about the fall of man and how his nature became corrupted.
The sinful acts of men and the sinful dispositions of men stem from the inborn, sinful nature and corrupt state of all men. This is a state of all men from their first moment of being and can't be changed by their own power.
Every single person, every little boy and every little girl that comes into this world, as sweet as they are when they're babies, they are born with a corrupt nature. They are born as...
Let's look at Psalm 51:5. Here is David's great confession of sin, of course. He says, "Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin my mother conceived me."
Now he's not saying his mother was an unrighteous woman or that his mother did something wrong in bearing him. What he is saying is that he was a person who was born a sinner. From the earliest part of his formation, when he was still within his mother's womb, he had a sinful nature.
That's part of the human condition. And we're going to learn about that next week when we look again at the fall of mankind. But it's something that you have and you can't change in and of yourself in your own power. It can't be changed by someone else, but something that you can't change.
As you know, I run a swimming pool business. And it wasn't very long ago I was doing a repair. A customer had a pump and motor and all kinds of equipment, but it wasn't running because the control system, which is like a little computer, had died.
And so nothing was running and their pool was going green and they needed a new computer, a new control system. So I got the new one, I removed the old one, connected all the wires right, turned the power back on, and it was dead.
No lights, no display, no power there. So I scratched my head and I checked the breakers, I checked my multimeter to make sure I had enough power coming into it, everything was right.
So I then disassembled it and went through every single wire to make sure it was connected properly and that everything was in place and it was installed properly. Then I turned it back on, dead as a doornail. It wouldn't work.
So I'd spent a lot of time on this at this point, so I called the manufacturer and they asked me to read the serial number to them. And so I read it to them and they said, "Oh, we had a bad batch that went out and yours falls within that batch."
I'm like, "Oh." I explained to them what I did and they said, "There's nothing you can do to make it work, right? We'll just have to send you a new one," right? And so they did. They sent me a new one, thankfully, and it got here in a couple of days and got it installed.
I point that out because there's nothing that you can do to change your sinful state. You can try harder, all you want, in your own power, and it's still going to be dead. Because you're born in a state of spiritual deadness.
You can try your best to get it to work and to animate it. You can hope, but you're going to fail. What you need is a new heart, right? That must be created within you by the Holy Spirit in regeneration through faith in our Lord Jesus Christ.
Let's look at Ephesians 2:3. "Among them, we too, all previously lived in the lust of our flesh," speaking of before we came to know Christ, "indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as the rest."
Here he's talking about the state that everybody's born into, that we walk evilly, we do evil, we indulge in the desires of the flesh because we're by nature children of wrath. Just as the rest.
Did you have a question? Did we do application in number seven? Because I totally missed it. Sorry.
Oh, you know what? I think you just jumped. I jumped ahead. I'm sorry. Thanks for catching me. I appreciate it. I jumped ahead to number seven. I forgot to do the application for six. Forgive me.
And I didn't even read the point for number seven.
Fits though we are sinners and deserve wrath. Let's look at the application for number six. I'm sorry about that. The application: Why does self-reform, that's the first blank, reform and good works fail? So reform is the first blank, good works is the second blank.
Why does self-reform and good works fail? If we have sin inborn within us and it's something that we don't have the power in and of ourselves to change, why do we try self-reform? Why do we try good works?
You know, there are people who do that. They try. They try to outweigh their sin. "If I donate enough money, if I do this and I do this, if I can try to curry God's favor, I do enough good things, maybe He'll forget the bad things that I've done."
That's the thinking behind it, right? It will not change your state. You have to have a new heart, a heart that's recreated in the image of Christ.
Bible point number seven. This universal sinful state of mankind is declared in that all men are said to be deserving of wrath and universally receive the penalty of death.
First blank is state, second blank is wrath, third blank is death. This universal sinful state of mankind is declared in that all men are said to be deserving of wrath.
We're called the children of wrath in Ephesians 2:3 that we just read and universally receive the penalty of death. No one gets out of here alive, right?
Now we have an example of Enoch where God supernaturally translated him into heaven, but that's the exception and not the rule, right? Noah was perfect in his generation. Did Noah die? Yes.
What about Job? Job, you know, God even brags to the devil, says, "There's one in a million. There's no one like Job." Is Job still alive here on earth? No. He will be again though one day, right? So that's something to say.
How about Daniel? Is Daniel still alive? He was a righteous man. No, because every single one of them, every single one of us have that sinful state and therefore the sinner must die, right?
We'll learn a little bit more about that next week when we discuss the fall of mankind.
Flip up on the back. Look up at number six here on the back. I want to show you some examples of this evil state. Matthew 12:34, Jesus says, "Brood of vipers," meaning children of Satan is what He's saying. "How can you being evil?" That's the condition of man who's estranged from God, who's not reconciled with God.
Psalm 58:3, "The wicked are estranged from the womb; they go astray as soon as they are born, speaking lies."
Jeremiah 31:23 talks about our inability to change and remove our sin. He uses two striking examples. "Can the Ethiopian change his skin? Can I make myself darker or lighter? No, you spray something on, but you can't change that."
It says, "Or the leopard his spots. There's not spot remover for leopards that I'm aware of, at least. Then you, may you also do good who are accustomed to do evil."
An evil tree produces evil fruit, right? Up at the top, Luke 6:45. "An evil man, out of the evil treasure of his heart, brings forth evil." An evil man has an evil heart. And guess what an evil man produces from that evil heart? Evil, right?
Then Romans 7:24. "Oh, wretched man that I am. Who will deliver? Who will deliver me from this body of death?" In the next verse, 25, you all know, "Christ Jesus, our Lord," right? He's the one who can deliver us from this body of death.
Let's flip back over on the front. The application is this. Who can deliver us from wrath? Wrath is the first blank or the only blank for number seven.
And I have here Romans 5:9. And I want to read that to you. "Much more than having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him."
Because we are declared to be right by the perfect sacrifice of Jesus Christ, by His blood, we are saved from wrath through Him.
He's kind of like Noah's Ark, right? Noah and his family were in that ark when the flood came, and they were shielded and protected from the wrath of God. Well, Christ is our propitiation. He's the place that shields us from God's wrath.
So He's the one who delivers us from the wrath that we deserve, from our sinful state that we were born into. Now, though, we can say that if we're in Christ, we have a new nature. We are new creations, new creatures, right? No longer children of wrath, but now we're children of God's good pleasure, adopted into His family.
Bible point number eight. Opposed to the universality of sin in mankind is the amazing grace of God. It's the first blank, grace of God.
This grace is manifested not only in the gift of Christ to die, that's the second blank, die for sinners, but in the gift of the Holy Spirit to convince, that's the third blank, convince men of their sins and lead, fourth blank, them to receive the Savior.
Opposed to the universality of sin in mankind is the amazing grace of God. This grace is manifested not only in the gift of Christ to die for sinners, but in the gift of the Holy Spirit to convince men of their sins and lead them to receive the Savior. Amen.
Praise God. He doesn't say, "Well, you know, you're in a state of sin. Good luck with that. Bye." He intervened. He sent His Son, Jesus Christ, to die.
Christ took on flesh, became one of us except without sin, right? He did not have that sinful nature. He was perfect. No other man was born perfect, but you can't look to Christ and say that man was perfect, right?
And He lived a perfectly pleasing life. He lived a perfectly pleasing life to the Lord in order to be our sacrifice, to die for us so the righteous one could become sin for us, that we could become the righteousness of God.
So it's in Christ that we see the amazing grace of God, but it's not just in His work. It's also in the work of His Holy Spirit, right? Because Christ didn't just die and rise again, and that is a great fact of salvation, but He rose to the right hand.
He rose to the right hand of God Almighty, from which forth He sent His Holy Spirit. And the Holy Spirit, the Bible tells us, works within us. Christ actually tells us in John 16 that I'm going to send you the Holy Spirit, and he's going to convict of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment.
And what an amazing, gracious thing that that is, to convict us of our sin, to show us a need for our Savior, to draw us near to Him, to convince us that we are sinners, and to lead us to Christ.
Look in the Old Testament, Psalm 97. It's the Psalm of Moses here. He says, "You have set our iniquities before you, our secret sins in the light of your countenance."
Now, you may think, "Well, that's kind of terrifying, to have your sins exposed before a holy God." Isn't that not what the Holy Spirit does? Does the Holy Spirit say, "You're a sinner, you're wretched, you're facing wrath? Turn, repent, call upon the Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ."
He promises that if you call upon Him, He will no wise cast you out, right? He will save you to the uttermost. It's what our Lord and Savior does.
So it's a gracious thing to convict us of sin, to expose our sin.
Flip over on the back. Galatians 3:22, we read the first part of this earlier. I want to read the whole verse here. It says, "But the scripture has confined all under sin, that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe."
Scripture shouts that we're all sinners, each and every one of us, not just so that we're going to feel bad and grovel the rest of our lives. The point of it is, says this, that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe.
By convincing us that we're sinners, we can then call out to Christ in faith and we can be saved. So it says, by His mercy, by His grace that He shows us the conviction of our sin.
And it's one of the most merciful, kindest, loving things that you can do is to tell someone that they are a sinner. If they're not confronted with their sinful condition, they're not aware of it.
If their heart is hardened and their conscience is dulled, they're skipping down the path, they're skipping down the path to hell. So the most gracious thing, the loving thing you can do is tell them.
Don't go there. Turn. You don't have to have money. You can buy without price. Come to Christ, the Savior, right? And He will take your filthy rags and give you His righteous robes. He will make your heart clean. He can take what was stained and make it clean again, right? It's the most gracious thing that you can do.
1 John 1:9, "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness."
If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just. He can justly forgive us of our sins, and He can be just in forgiving our sins because He's paid that price.
Romans tells us that Christ died that God may be the just and the justifier of sinners, that He can be shown to be a just God because He's not just willy-nilly forgiving us for our sins. He's forgiving our sins because Christ perfectly made satisfaction in the holiness of God by dying on the cross.
And He can cleanse us from all unrighteousness. The application is this. How is conviction of sin part of God's grace?
Have you ever been convicted of sin? If you're a Christian, of course you have, right? The very fact that you confess Christ as your Savior shows at one point you were convicted of sin.
Continually now, though, as Christians, does not the Holy Spirit continue to convict us of sins? And isn't that a gracious thing? What if He didn't? Where would our sin lead us? What despair? What hurt?
We'd be, of all men, most pitiful if we were forgetting that we were forgiven but left alone. But praise God, He sends the Holy Spirit to sanctify us, right?
It is His gracious provision to convict us of sin. And how are you convicted of sin? But by staying in His word, right? Reading His word, letting the Holy Spirit minister to you through His word, and coming here to church, where you have brothers and sisters in Christ who will faithfully tell you the truth, right?
So that's the doctrine of the universality of mankind's sin.
on Oct 18, 2024
