In this sermon, the preacher emphasizes the contrasting reactions of unconverted people and converted people to the preaching of the word of God. Unconverted people may be offended and walk out, while converted people, often not considered noble or wise, will praise the Lord. The preacher highlights the depravity of humanity without the grace of God, using the example of an 18-month-old child who, if given the strength, would harm their own father without remorse. On the day of judgment, the true nature of those who did not know Christ will be revealed, and the grace that endeared believers to them will be removed. The preacher also emphasizes the importance of God's justice and the manifestation of His goodness towards believers in eternity.

Now, we're talking about a very, very special and very dangerous doctrine. We're talking about men. We're talking about the depravity of men. Now, when I was a little boy, I remember you could go into certain places, country stores where men would sit around and talk, or barbershops. And I even saw in one of them a sign one time, you can talk about anything here, but politics and religion, because we all know that those two things, especially religion, will cause a war. But when you start teaching on the doctrine of man, you are trampling on humanity's God, because humanity's God is humanity. Mark Twain said, My religion is humanity. And that is the religion of men. And so whenever you begin to take this doctrine on of what is man, no. That war is going to be declared upon you, how dare you speak about me this way? But the doctrine of man determines almost everything else that you understand in the scriptures, as a matter of fact, it was through coming to grips with the doctrine of man that eventually led me to the doctrines of grace to come to the conclusion, if man is truly as the Bible paints him, then there is absolutely no hope for man except a gracious God that initiates and fulfills the very thing he initiates. Now, when we talk about the doctrine of man, we talk about the fall that was set before us. We have to always realize that there is a great deal of mystery. And there are things in scriptures that are direct statements that we can grab a hold of. There are other things that we feel comfortable in making inferences, but realize they're still inferences. A perfect example of this would be the Trinity. I know that God is one. I know that there are three distinct persons who are God. I know that from scripture. Now, when I start trying to put all that together, I move into the realm of inference. Now, it's important to wrangle with these things of exactly how did it happen, but when it comes down to it, what we have to do is accept the fact that God said this. It's true. Martin Lloyd-Jones is very good on this in chapter five of the book of Romans because he basically says this. Ask me to explain imputation. And he says, I will tell you that I can not explain it. I do not fully understand it. But I believe it's true because it's exactly what God says, so we have to deal in this realm a lot of times now, but I want you to consider some things about the fall before we go on to our text in Ephesians, some things that are very, very important. I want you to look at the fall of man Christologically. Now, what do I mean by that? God, through this redemptive work of Christ, is summing up everything in Christ. It's all about Christ. It has always been all about Christ. It is so all about Christ that I have come to the conclusion recently that to truly be holy is to love what God loves. And the greatest object of God's affection is his son. So for me to be most holy is to most love his son. It is all about the son. Everything is about the son. He created the world through the son. He sustains the world through the son, he redeems the world through the son, he judges the world through his son, he reveals himself to the world through the son, it has always been the son, it's always been about him. Now, turn to Ephesians just quickly, it's not to the main passage, but I want to hit on this before I go to really begin to talk about man, I want you to look in Ephesians 2 in verse six, it says, and raised us up with him and seated us with him. That is Christ in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus. Why? So that in the ages of come, he might ages to come, he might show the surpassing riches of his grace and his kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. Now go to chapter three, verse 10, so that the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known through the church to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places. One thing that almost all theologians agree on, even even neo-orthodox theologians, is that God is the God of revelation. I'm not speaking about the book of revelation, but the doctrine of revelation. God is the God who reveals himself, who unfolds himself, who opens himself up, who makes himself known. Well, now, let's just take a look at something for a moment. Whenever you and I think about God and we're brought to heights of joy and rapture, it's usually not because we're singing about the condemnation of sin or the fall. Usually when you and I are brought to the greatest delight in God is when we are reveling in grace, when we are reveling in mercy. These are attributes of God that have been revealed, and now therein lies the problem. How do you reveal grace? And mercy and unconditional love. In anything but a fallen world. It's an impossibility, it's an impossibility, so this thing of the cross is not just about or primarily even about the redemption of man, but it is about a revelation of the glory and the splendor and the full attributes of God. What I'm going to tell you is simply this. Apart from the fall, God could never be known in his fullness. Not only could he not be known to us in his fullness, he could not even be known to the principalities and powers and mights and dominion in his fullness. What is grace? How can it be demonstrated except upon a completely, entirely undeserving creature? When we talk about the fall of Adam, I want you to know that presents some of the greatest philosophical and theological problems in all the Bible. We even take a step back from that. We talk about the fall of Satan. I mean, when when when Adam is created in the garden, it does not say he was created innocent. It doesn't say that it says he was created good. And there is a tremendous difference between that. Most pop theologians today, what they do is kind of put it like like God made a cone or a pyramid, absolutely mathematically perfect, with a perfect point at the top. And then he took a perfect sphere, Adam, and he set him and balanced him perfectly. On that cone, on that point, and then he stood back to see what would happen when the winds blew, would Adam go this way or would Adam go that way? And depending on what Adam did, God would have to respond now that totally removes the sovereignty of God from any sort of picture. But it does something even worse. It makes Christ plan B. Can you imagine? Can you imagine a religion without the cross? Can you imagine a Christianity without the cross? Can you imagine anything of knowing God apart from the cross? So many people say the cross was necessary because of the fall. I turn it on its head. No, the fall was necessary so that there could be a cross. It was necessary. Now, I want you to look at something else. God put Adam in that garden. And do you know what? Even those well, let me put it this way, he could have kept Satan out of the garden. Let me even go farther. He could have allowed Satan in the garden and God could have sustained Adam by his grace so that he would not have fallen into temptation. Now, the object there are the objection that most people would present to that is no, no, he couldn't do that because then Adam would be a robot. You just annihilated heaven with that statement, because we all believe that in heaven, God will sustain us with his grace and we will not fall. Does that make us all robots? He could have sustained Adam. But for some reason. He chose not to. We see the same thing with the elect angels. He chose not to. Adam was fully responsible for everything that he did. God could have sustained him by his grace. God did not. He did not. He did not. And there was a reason for it. A reason that down through the centuries. Would come the Christ to reveal God in the fullness of his glory to reveal God. Now, I want you to look at something, look at that, just imagine the world for a moment. I don't suppose there are any Unitarians here or universalist, but just imagine the world for a moment. We all believe that not only did God have to create the world, but he has to sustain the world. If God draws back from that world, it created he created. It does not have power in itself to remain in existence. It comes to nothing, comes to ruin. So he not only creates, he has to sustain. It is the same way. Not only had it had to create Adam, he had to sustain Adam in that first position of righteousness in his creation to draw back from him. To let him go leads to the fall. Now, what does this teach us? It teaches us something absolutely spectacular for man himself, absolutely spectacular for the Christian. Is that even in heaven, there will not be this sense in which God makes you perfect. Now it's a done deal and he draws back from you. No, it is in heaven that God in his covenants and his graciousness is constantly sustaining you. Constantly, so I was discussing with some students last night, I said, you think that you've got a certain sin in your life and you're going to pray and fast and read the word and you get victory over it and then you forget about your need of God in that certain area and you fall back into that sin. That's because God is not going to give you power over that sin and make you complete so that now you can live independently of him. He's teaching you that to have victory over all sin, any sin at any time, you must live in complete and constant dependence upon him. But this was in God's decree. Adam was not sustained. And Adam fell now in this passage in Ephesians that we have here, it says in chapter two, so that in the ages to come, he might show the surpassing riches of his grace and his kindness towards us in Christ Jesus. Let me just share with you what what's going to happen in your future. This is your future. This is the purpose of everything. Satan falls and there's pure justice, perfect justice, perfect justice. God creates man a ball of dirt infused with holy breath, places him on a planet. Of dirt. And this creature, so insignificant in comparison to the glorious angels in such a place, so earthy and dirty and primitive. If. This creature falls, what are all the principalities and powers and might and dominions expecting justice, perfect, unmitigated justice, and what do they see for the first time in all of their existence? Grace, an animal is taken, skins are made and the covering. They took a look, they take a look at Adam, the wretched state of these two parents of ours, they take a look at God and they see grace and they fall down and they worship God in a way that they could never have worshipped him before. And then it just keeps going, the grace keeps growing as we see Noah saved, he should have died, too. And we see Israel called forth and we see their heresies and everything else they commit against, but yet more and more grace in all of creation is looking at this wretched thing, looking at God and seeing grace and worshipping in a way they could have never worshipped before. And then. Comes the Christ incarnate. To walk in the cesspool of our reality, he goes to a tree and he dies, he rises again from the dead, he's seated at the right hand of God's, the man for us in heaven, and then there's you. I want to talk specifically to you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you are born. In sin. File, you came forth from the womb, and if you did not make Hitler look like a choirboy, it's only because the grace of God restrained your evil so that a work of redemption could be done and all of creation is looking down at you saying condemnation, condemnation, condemnation. And then. And then one day a preacher is sent. And the word of God comes forth and the spirit of God comes and makes you alive and the blood of the lamb cleanses you from your filth and all of creation is looking at this moment and they're worshipping God in a way they could have never worshipped God before. And then what's going to happen is you're going to die in corruption and then a horn is going to blow. And you will be raised. And you will be seated with Christ. And throughout all of eternity, every day of eternity will lead to greater, more heaping amounts of God's graciousness poured out on your head. And as you roll through eternity, God's goodness toward you will be more and more exponentially manifested so that all of creation every day, basically their task will be to get up, look at you, see the great things God has done for you in Christ and then worship him in a way they could have never worshipped him even the day before. This is what's set for you. So now we can we can be burned at the stake. Now we can be hated by all men. Now we can be slandered and maligned and everything else. Why look at this certain future? That is coming upon us. That could have never happened without a cross. It could have never happened without a fall. Now, let's go on to our our sermon. Let's go to Ephesians, chapter two and chapter two, verse one. You were dead in your trespasses and sins in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience. Among them, we, too, all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging in the desires of the flesh and of the mind and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest. But God, for our young theologians here, I've never been able to say I've never seen in my days as a little boy and things watching these old preachers. I've never seen one of those preachers get to but God without a tear in their eye. That's how you know these doctrines have made their way into your heart. Now, I want us to look at some things that are very, very important. It is not very it is not in vogue today. To teach that men are evil. You see, you say a man is a sinner, everyone will laugh and agree with you, but for me to stand before a group of people and say that men are evil now, that's a completely different thing. But that's exactly what the scriptures are teaching. Now, people will come to me and they say, why are you always talking about this? Why are you always talking about sin? Why can't you just go on? I mean, why is this so important? Well, I want to share with you biblically why it is so important. I want you to look in chapter one of Ephesians, verse 18 and 19. Paul says this, I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened so that you will know what is the hope of his calling. What are the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints and what is the surpassing greatness of his power towards us who believe these are in accordance with the working of the strength of his might. Now, Paul prays this, that the believers eyes might be open to the greatness of what God has done for them in Christ. It is not a coincidence. Since. Then in Ephesians, too, he begins talking about the radical or total depravity of man, the spiritual death of man. You see, here's what you need to understand in order for us to understand the greatness of what God has done for us in Christ, we must understand our prior condition. You see, if I bring someone in here and they're finally dressed and they're speaking in a mannerly way and I tell you that they were born in in England and that their father worked for the king and that he was actually an instructor in manners and customs and that the child has been brought up in a right fine religious environment, you wouldn't be amazed at him standing there speaking well and dressed in fine clothes. But if I told you this child was taken out of the very gutters of Calcutta. Where it lived like an animal for the first 15 years of its life, you say, then what brought about the transformation? Something amazing has happened here. Now, I want to give you some of the reasons why. When the founders have a conference on man and depravity and sin, that they're not just a bunch of mean spirited people with nothing to talk about, but terrible things. There's a reason for this. The first one, we cannot, according to verse 18 and 19, we cannot fully appreciate the greatness of God's power unless we understand the radical, pervasive, total depravity of man. What had to occur in order for us to be rescued cannot be understood unless we understand what we were. Secondly, we cannot understand the nature or depths of Christ's love. We cannot. I mean, Paul lays out that argument for us in chapter five of the Book of Romans, he says, well, I suppose for a good man or a righteous man, someone might die and it would be an incredible thing if they did. But Christ died for us when we are sinners. Now, you can't just leave it at that, because today people laugh at sin. They sell their products by using sin. Sin is a joke. So it is the task of the preacher to show people what that word means so that it wipes the smile off of their face. We cannot understand the love of Christ. Reporter asked me one time, he was so angry, said, why are you talking so much about sin? And I said, because I want you to love God, I want you to appreciate what God has done for you. Now, there's another reason we cannot understand the depths of Christ's suffering, that he who knew no sin has made sin on our behalf, that he became a curse for us. If you do not understand the vile nature of men and the sinfulness of sin, then you can never appreciate what Christ did for you on that tree and not just for not just on the tree, but in the incarnation itself, how he had to humiliate himself to walk among us. You see, you must understand these things. My great goal is for you to love Christ. You know, I say this, if I walked up to a Bill Gates or someone that wealthy and I said, here, sir, a bologna sandwich, even if he was a polite man, even if he knew how to act, he would. What do I need with a bologna sandwich, a bologna sandwich, I can I can buy a restaurant. But if I go to the streets, the inner city of Lima, Peru, and I say here, ma'am. Here's a bologna sandwich. She will kiss my hands. And we. And she will tell of my graciousness to her, to her children and her children's children, I want you to be that kind of person, I don't want to hurt you by making you see all the darkness that was and even some of it still remains. I don't want that to end there with you simply hurting. I want that to cause you to get an upward glance at Christ and see him as altogether lovely. That's why we talk about the darkness of men. I'll always tell tell people, I'll say, let me ask you a question. Where did the stars go this morning? Did some gigantic cosmic creature come by and pick them up, pick them up in a basket and take them all away? Where did they go? I said, well, they didn't go anywhere, Brother Paul, they're still there. Why can't I see them? Too much light. That's the same way I can only admire the beauty of the stars when they're set against the pitch black of night. I can only see grace in its most gracious form when it's set against my evil and the evil of humanity. Also, we cannot not only can we not understand how much Christ loves us, but a connected doctrine to that is we cannot understand how much we have truly been forgiven. You forgive me. For eating too much at your table, I suppose I will appreciate that. You forgive me for murder. How much more my appreciation, Jesus said she loved much because she's been forgiven much. He who has been forgiven little loves little. So sometimes we wonder, you know, how is it that this prostitute or this this drug addict or this this person after they were converted has such a zeal, such a love for Christ? Therein lies the reason they weren't in your country club. They never wore pretty clothes. They knew what they were and in that they can appreciate forgiveness. Another thing which is very important to me and my calling is this. We cannot understand apart from understanding the doctrine of depravity. We cannot understand the power that is required in the conversion of men every time and every preacher ought to say this. Every time I walk out onto a platform behind a pulpit preaching in the streets, I am Ezekiel. I am in a valley of dead bones that are very, very dry. I am by the Holy Spirit. Ask this question, can these bones live? And my answer must not be unbelief and it must not be presumption. I must not fail to believe my God by saying there's no way, Lord, they can believe. There's no way they can live, but I must not presume upon him and say, yes, they will. I say, you know, Lord, that the only way someone is getting converted here tonight is by the supernatural hand of God. And you see how that frees up the preacher. I now no longer have to be a circus clown or an entertainer or someone filled with tricks and gimmicks and nuances. I no longer have to manipulate or coerce. I am no longer a charlatan or a car salesman or this or that. I am a prophet and I speak to men and speak to God and the Spirit of God comes and raises them to life. That is the difference. You put away all the stupid little toys that cannot make men come to life, just one man and a Bible and a proclamation of thus saith the Lord and bones will rattle. Men, we are prophets. We are not entertainers, we are not to be toyed with. We're not kings, we wash feet. We're wrapped with a towel, we're not little gimmicky people. With quick speech to sell something that no one would really want if they knew what we were selling. We're prophets. We proclaim truth and men come to life, it's a noble thing. Don't allow that, allow that to be stolen from you. Another thing, we cannot well shut up men to grace until we have exhausted every possibility of self-redemption. That is Paul's entire argument in Romans three, don't you see? I mean, the closest thing we have to a systematic theology in the New Testament is the book of Romans, and it's not a systematic theology. But again, it is a collective thing that we can see Paul's mind in theology working. And isn't it amazing? He spends basically his first three chapters with one intention to condemn everyone, to shut the mouth of every man. You see, in preaching and the old men knew this, that if you if you if you set before the sinner and you preach to him and he's trying to save himself, he thinks he's a good man. If you cut him off in this direction, he'll run in that direction. You cut him off in this direction, he'll run the other direction. You cut him off and cut him off again. He'll try to dig under. He'll try to go over the wall. You've got to shut him down. You've got to prove to him with the scriptures, you cannot have to leave him destitute. And only then, only then does the sinner take the option. For man, it's always the last option, grace, so we must preach this way also. So if we do not understand radical depravity, we do not understand the seriousness of the gospel ministry. If I were to describe. Evangelicalism in America, most churches and most preaching. I'd say about the best description I could give it is it looks to me like a six flags over Jesus. I hate it, it's pathetic, and I'm not going to use any kind word. It's a travesty. Do you know what? How many of you've read Pilgrim's Progress? Do you realize that the church in America looks exactly like Vanity Fair? I know that I will stand before God and be judged. And I want you to know I fear that many people do not understand. Second, Corinthians chapter five, where it says where Paul says, knowing the fear of the Lord, he persuades men. Most people think that that Paul is saying this, that since he knows men are going to be judged by God. Since he knows what that judgment is going to be like, he persuades them to turn before their judge. That's not what he's saying in that context. What he's saying is this. I myself, knowing the fear of the Lord, that I will be judged. I will persuade men and not water down the truth so that they'll like me. I'm afraid. I have a stewardship before God and I will be judged. That's why I persuade men. But I want to tell you something. The judgment will fall hardest upon evangelical pastors. It will fall harder upon evangelical pastors than it will upon liberal politicians and presidents. Many of these men are not converted and some that are converted, they have they have been led astray. By the Balaam of self-preservation. Man came to me a few years ago and he said, brother, Paul, if I start preaching the truth, they'll kill me. I looked at him and I said, then die. Then die, do not be a coward, cowards will not inherit the kingdom of heaven. Be brave, play the man. Now, I must stop here, though, and I must tell especially you young preachers, if I were to take a church tomorrow, a typical church like the one I've described, I would not come in there with guns blazing. I wouldn't be deceptive. But here's what I would admonish you to do, this is what I would do. Most young men will take a church and immediately they'll start preaching on the book of Ephesians. When when. I went years in the ministry before I even dared start thinking about preaching through that book. Here's what I do. I go into a church, I'm not going to be controversial, I'm going to teach them wonderful things about Christ, I am also going to teach them truths about everything that really hits home with them, like home, like marriage, like children, how to grow, how to read your Bible. I'm going to teach them things no man has ever labored to teach them non-controversial things. And I'm going to love them like no man has ever loved them. I'm going to visit hospitals. I'm going to pray with them. I'm going to be concerned for the souls of their children. I'm going to teach them to catechize. I'm going to do all kinds of things that has nothing to do with all this stuff. And then when I get to the point where it's time to teach the book of Ephesians and they hear strange things coming out of my mouth, this is what they're going to say. They're going to say, we never heard this before. And it actually goes against some of the things we have heard. But we have never had a man in our pulpit that taught us the things this man has taught us or loved us the way this man has loved us. Let's listen. Do you see that? Just just a remark there. All right, let's go on. Apart from these doctrines, we cannot understand the doctrine of wrath. Apart from the doctrine of depravity, we cannot understand the doctrine of wrath, nor can we understand the doctrine of hell. As a matter of fact. There have been some even some men that I have cherished that in recent years have began to draw back on the doctrine of hell. Saying things as such as that it is it is a once and for all destruction, it is not eternal. Men are annihilated, all sorts of things. And I believe that the root of their problem comes down to this. They do not understand radical depravity. You see, apart from the doctrine of depravity, it can be argued that both wrath and hell are immoral. All. Because how could a partially partially righteous, how could a good person, that is, someone who's not an axe murderer, how can they actually be confined to hell? It is only when we understand that men are evil and continue throughout eternity in their evil that hell is no longer immoral, but is actually just. When you begin to realize, let me set some things before you, because I may not have time in the next two sessions, just I want to give you an idea of what I'm talking about. Someone always asks me when I'm at a university, they go, well, what about the good atheist? And I say, well, first of all, before I answer that, could you give me his name and number? Because I hear about this guy all the time, but I've never met him. Of course, no one can. But they say, well, what about the guy is an atheist, but he mows the yard, you know, for his neighbor, he fixes the elderly woman's battery in her sink when her pipes get clogged and all these things. He's not an axe murderer. What does God do to him? And I said, oh, well. The deepest part of hell is reserved for that man. They said, well, how can you say that? I said, you are supposing that the restraint of evil in his life and the appearance of good is done independently of God. I said, if this man is not an axe murderer, it is the grace of God that has restrained him from being that. And if he does go over to help his neighbor, even though it is driven by self-love and not love for God, it is still the grace of God, the common grace of God that enables him to do so. So what's actually going on here is we have a beast. We have an evil, evil man who has the appearance of goodness only because of the grace of the very God he denies. Even our unconverted children, teenagers and things like that, we love them, don't we? We want them safe, don't we? But the Bible teaches also that they are radically depraved creatures. One correctional officer described it this way, says, after all my years of working with young people, I have this to say, that if you took. An 18 month old child. You're holding it in his arms, you're holding that child in your arms, reaches for your watch. You say no, says the child begins to squirm and reaches for the watch again. You say no, begins to squirm and cry, reaches for the watch again. No, the child's arms begin to frail. He said, I would submit to you at that very moment that if that 18 month old child had the strength of an 18 year old man, he would slaughter his father where he stands, rip the watch off his arm and walk over his bloody body without feeling an ounce of remorse. I see that disturbs you, but I submit to you that apart from the grace of God, that's exactly what would happen. And that is why on the day of judgment, what will happen is the things you loved about all the people around you who did not know Christ, but you were still endeared to them. You saw them as precious and other things, what you were loving upon them was the grace of God. And on Judgment Day, the very thing that endeared you to them will be removed and you will see the monster that they actually are. And when they take their first step into hell, you will raise your hand and say the God of all the earth has been just. You see, even when you start talking this way among reformed people, they get shook up. This is ugly. This is ugly. It's real. It's real. Whether you want to go to Auschwitz or the killing fields or a child that simply didn't have his way in a department store and kills his mom and dad, it's real. And the only reason the whole of humanity is not sucked down the drain is that the common grace of God is restraining humanity, keeping it together so that he can do his glorious work of redemption. Now, apart from these doctrines. We can also not appreciate. What has been done to us. I want you to understand something that's very, very important. When I walk into a place and I'm preaching to a bunch of unconverted carnal church people, I am going to preach about sin, preach about sin, preach about sin, preach about sin. But I want you to know something else. When I am with a group of people who are genuinely converted, who are genuinely sheep. I am going to spend the whole of my strength trying to explain to them. All the great things that have been done for them. The new nature that's been given to them, the spirit that indwells them, I'm going to teach them about grace, grace, grace, grace, grace, because you see, if they've truly been regenerate. Their freedom from the law and the grace that has been given to them and the unconditional love of God will not promote ungodliness among them, it will promote greater and greater desires for holiness. You see, in many congregations, most of the people are unconverted so that if you're going to get them to look like sheep at all, you've got to manipulate them, coerce them, drive them with fear and everything else. I shall not do that to the bride of Christ. If a person is genuinely converted, the more they learn about their freedom, the more they learn about grace, the more they learn about unconditional love, the more holy they are going to want to be. So the same grace that turns an unconverted church person into a lawless person. Promotes holiness among God's people. What I want you to see, like I'll have Christians come up to me, Christians who truly love the Lord, but they've learned this kind of language, I say, how are you doing, brother? Well, you know, brother Paul, I'm just a filthy, wretched sinner with, you know, just a God hating heart. And I look at him and say, let me ask you a question, just what did God do to your heart when He converted you, when you were born again? Brother, you really don't have a heart that hates God. I mean, let me ask you a question, you hate God? I hate when I sin. I hate that I don't love God enough, I don't hate God anymore. And I want to tell you something, I don't love unrighteousness, and if you do, you've got a serious problem. I do commit unrighteousness, and when I do, I hate what I've done. Don't be coming to me with that kind of language. I'm a new creature and I know I'm a new creature, not because of sinless perfection, far from it. I know I'm a new creature because when I do sin, I can't stand it. I hate myself and that's amazing to me when I know what I was. I drank down iniquity like water and now I'm new. I don't have those affections anymore. So it's a great thing. Now, let's go on. Goodness gracious, we're getting to the first word of the first verse. We're not making much progress, are we? Now, I want to look at something he says in verse one, he says in chapter two of Ephesians, and you were dead in your trespasses and sins. Now, let me go through a few of the I call it pop theology, like we have pop science type of theology that you might put, you know, the book you might pick off a common Christian bookstore shelf. But they would say this about what does it mean that we are dead in our sins? The first would be it means that man is under the dominion of sin, he's under the dominion of death, that that he's in the realm of death. Many people today will say that. And that's absolutely right. That's a correct interpretation. The only problem is it doesn't go far enough. Now, other people will say, well, what it means to be spiritually dead is that we are alienated and separated from the life of God. And there's biblical precedent for that. If you go to verse 12, look what it says. He says, remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, excluded from the Commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenant, the promise with no hope and without God in the world. So being dead means that you are alienated from God and the life of God. It does mean that there's only one problem. That definition doesn't go far enough either. How do we know exactly what this word is meaning? Well, first go to verse 20 of chapter one. He says, which he brought about in Christ when he raised him from the dead. He raised Christ from a literal death and seated him at his right hand in heavenly places. Now go to chapter two, verse one, and you were dead. So Christ was dead and Christ was raised. And you were dead. Now go on to verse five. And when we were dead in our trespasses, he made us alive together with Christ. By grace, you have been saved. So the idea is Christ was dead and God raised him from the dead. You were dead and God raised you from the dead in Christ. Now, what's very, very important when you look at verse five, there is no one who will disagree with the interpretation that Paul is speaking about regeneration. The infusion of spiritual life into the sinner at the moment of conversion, at the moment of being born again, they are being raised from the dead. But what you need to understand is Ephesians chapter two, verse one, he says, and you were dead in your trespasses and sins. Then there's a parenthesis here and you go through two, three and four and then in five, he comes back to what he was talking about in verse one and he's going to explain it. Even when you were dead in transgressions, he made us alive. He infused us with spiritual life. Even our Arminian brothers will say that apart from being born again, you can't serve God, apart from being born again, you can't do this and you can't do that and you can't please God. They say that, but they don't take that to its logical conclusion. The idea here is the reason why you had to be made alive, be infused with spiritual life, is because you were spiritually dead. And if you were only spiritually sick, then Christ, he only got sick on Calvary. No, he died on Calvary and you were dead now. But we need now an interpretation or a definition of spiritual death. And this is very important because I read books against what I believe. People attacking what I believe, and I read things at times on the Internet, people attacking me. And one of the things that they'll say is, well, you know, if man's spiritually dead, that's not his fault. If he's just spiritually dead, it's not his fault. I mean, can you judge a blind man for not being able to read a book? I mean, this is wrong. This is ludicrous. But when we say when the Orthodox say spiritual dead, it's not what they're saying. We're saying something else. When we say that a man is spiritually dead, we're saying this, that men are unresponsive to the person and will of God and responsive to every sort of wicked stimuli, both human and demonic. Man is a lifeless corpse to God in that he is unable to love, obey and please God. He is unable to respond to God in any positive manner. Now, that's what I mean when I say spiritual death. But now, as I'm going to show later on, I don't have time right now, as I'm going to show later on, is that men misinterpret this. And they'll say, well, if men can't come to God, if men can't hear God, then men should not be held guilty. Here's what you need to understand. Spiritual death, our moral inability, can also be called willing hostility. Now, what do I mean? Men cannot come to God. Why? Because they lack the faculties. No, they have the faculties. Why can they not come to God? They cannot come to God because they will not come to God. And why will they not come to God? Because they hate him. So that when we say spiritual death, it's a moral thing. He cannot hear God. This sinner can not hear God. They say, well, then how can he be guilty? Because he cannot hear God, because he will not hear God. He will not hear God because he hates God. These men that write these books, they are either ignorant of sovereign grace or they are willing deceivers because these are what they say we're saying is not what we're saying. We're saying men cannot because they're evil. Now, I want to look at one other thing before we close here just quickly. Let me give you some biblical illustrations. The Bible says in Ezekiel 11, 19, that men have hearts of stone. One thing we all know about stone, I think we can be in agreement about is they do not respond to stimuli. If you ever have a stone that starts responding to your stimuli, you need counseling. Stones do not respond to stimuli. We have hearts of stone that do not respond to God in any positive manner. A very unusual text in First Timothy 5, 6, fallen men and women are dead even while they live. And they may live even in the realm of religious activity. Well, my dear friend, the Southern Baptist Convention is full of dead people doing religious activity and their pastors love it that way. And thus, I said last night that many of the great ministries in the Southern Baptist Convention are nothing more than proud men building their kingdoms upon the bones of unconverted church members. Also, fallen men are like autumn trees without fruit, doubly dead and uprooted. That's what Jude says. You cannot get more graphic than that. Now, I want us to look and this is a very important part in Ephesians 2, 1, he says, and you were dead in your trespasses and sins. Now, the Greek scholar Daniel Wallace in the Greek grammar beyond the basics. And I really I follow his lead on this. I agree with him. He takes this as a dative of sphere. You were dead in the sphere of your trespasses and sins. Some people take it as cause you were dead because of your trespasses and sins. I don't believe that that necessarily fits the context. I prefer that you were dead in the sphere of your trespasses and sins. Now, when he talks about trespasses and sins, we should not try to make a sharp distinction between trespasses and sins. That's not Paul's idea here. What he's simply doing is he's saying you were dead in the full course of all types and kinds of sins, every manner of sin. Now, what does it mean to be dead in the sphere of your trespasses and sins? I think this is very important. I wrestled with this honestly, folks. I wrestled with this for like three days because it's one thing to say it, but it's one it's another thing to drive the point home. What does it mean? I mean, what does that look like? And this is after prayer and after just thinking through this matter, this is how I would illustrate it for you. I want you to imagine and it's hard to imagine unless you've seen something like this and I have. Imagine a putrefying corpse and ladies, I apologize for the language that's going to be used, but it's necessary. Imagine a putrefying corpse floating at the bottom of a cesspool. Created by the refuse and the excrement that is flowing from the corpse, you see, when you say man's a sinner, that's not what comes into the mind of people. When you say that men are dead in their trespasses and sins, this is not what comes into their mind. Imagine a cesspool of filth floating at the bottom is a putrid, rotting corpse. And the cesspool has been created by the refuse coming forth from the body. Now, if this body is covered at all, it is covered with what does he say? All our righteous deeds are like filthy rags, Jude says it this way, garments polluted by the flesh and worthy of all loathing. This is man, and if you're not willing to accept this, you are not orthodox. You see, it's one thing to say all these kind of general cliche statements. It's another thing to drive the point home. This is man. This is man. Now, when we think of dead in your trespasses and sins, many people will wrongly just shoot off to, you know, the tomb of Lazarus. And that is a wonderful illustration. But I want you to look at something. What Paul's talking about here is not a washed body. Wrapped in linen, clean linen by the ones who loved that person. This is not a tomb cut into stone or out of marble and the body finally and neatly laid there. This is a putrid corpse rotting in a cesspool of excrement and floating at the bottom. Now, I want you to think about something I wrote here. This gives a whole new meaning to the incarnation and the death of Christ. He came in the likeness of sinful flesh, Romans 8, 3. Now, that does not mean that Christ had a corrupt body, but what it does mean is he did not have a pre fall Adamic body. So many people have this idea, the superstition that Christ came down and he had this body that was super strong and super beautiful and all these different things. That is not true. That's not what the Scripture says. He didn't just take on a body of flesh. He took on a body in the likeness of sinful flesh. That doesn't mean he was morally corrupt or had any corruption. He was always the unblemished lamb, spotless. But what you need to understand is his body suffered the consequences of the fall. It did. That is why he was weary, he was tired, he was thirsty. He mourned, he was broken. And if you read Hebrews correctly, you understand that that from the moment of his birth, as he kept understanding more and more and more and more of what the father was laying upon him and he began to understand more and more of the grotesque act he was going to have to carry out to die under the sins of men, to suffer the wrath of God with each step. It was like he was going deeper and deeper and deeper into that reality. That's why the Bible says he was basically growing in obedience. He was growing in stature. He was confronted more and more with how horrendous this cross would be. And every time it was shown to him, he still accepted it and went on. He accepted it and went on. Now, I want you to realize this, remember what I said when he says dead in your trespasses and sins, what you have is a rotting, filthy corpse floating at the bottom of a cesspool, a cesspool created from the very refuse and excrement flowing out of the corpse. And Christ, when he became a man, he waded that cesspool. Don't you understand? I have been in places in this world that are so dark, where children are being sold, where things are going on horrifying places and you can't even get out of there without feeling that you've somehow been soiled and filled with just horrid things. And yet I am evil and I feel this way. The Holy Christ becomes a man, takes upon himself the body and the likeness of sinful flesh and wades the cesspool of humanity. You see, there's no way to talk about the greatness of Christ set forth in Ephesians one unless you're willing to go down into the dungeon of man's cesspool of his filth. And most people are not willing to go there. They do not want to go there. And therefore, they can never love Christ as they ought to never. She loved much because she has been forgiven much. This goes so far beyond even Ezekiel's Valley of Dry Bones. This goes so far beyond Ezekiel 16, where you have the infant squirming in its own blood at the side of the road and is redeemed by Yahweh. This is Christ. Waiting the cesspool of humanity and then on the cross, he takes a breath. And plunges head first into the cesspool. To pull you out, I have found that these horrible things about me make me almost collapse in wanting to adore him. And if it is necessary to take a rope with no lantern and to go as far down into the cesspool of humanity as I have to go, if it's necessary to go to the end of it, that I might more fully appreciate Christ, then so be it. And so be it. This is what he has done. He entered into this reality. Of course, in Romans six, we're going to understand I'm not going to be able to teach on that, but Romans six, he came out of that reality, too. This is why this doctrine is so very important to my brothers. But brothers, do not teach this, although. Things have to be taught academically at times. And at times in one sermon, we most certainly do not have time to draw this thing and turn it back to Christ, but don't just teach these things to your people academically. Show them what it means and what you'll find out when you what I preached here today. Unconverted people in the church will walk out offended. Converted people, most of them not among the noble or the wise, will be slapping themselves on the thigh going, praise the Lord, praise the Lord. What a Savior we've got. Isn't that an amazing reaction? One is the reaction of a goat finally dressed and the other is the reaction of a sheep who has a little education, but a sheep indeed. Well, let's pray.