In this sermon, the speaker discusses the transformative power of the Gospel in a person's life. He describes a scenario where a man, who is not yet saved, is frustrated and overwhelmed with the pressures of life. He reacts angrily when asked to take out the trash, feeling justified in his response. However, after getting saved, the man experiences a change of heart and a new desire for righteousness. The speaker also highlights the boldness of the Apostle Paul in proclaiming the Gospel to the Greek philosophers, challenging their beliefs and presenting the truth of God becoming man.

Now, he says, you are dead in your trespasses and sins, and we covered that this morning. But I want to review it for those of you who weren't here, because it's going to be especially important tomorrow. That when he says you're dead in your trespasses and sin, I take that as a date of a sphere, that you are dead within the sphere of your trespasses and sins. And trespasses and sins is just simply Paul heaping one term upon another to describe all our sins, our sins of every type and every kind. You were dead in this sphere of them. Now, what does he mean? And I've described it this way. I want you to imagine a rotten, putrefying corpse floating at the bottom of a cesspool. But a cesspool that was created by the filth, the vile refuse, the excrement coming forth from the body itself. This is what it means when it says that you were dead in your trespasses and sins. I know that this is a horrible illustration, but nonetheless, this is what we need to see. This is what man is. And this is not just academic, like counting how many angels can dance on the top of a pin. This is very important. It affects everything we do in the ministry. You see, if this is true, if men are dead. But it doesn't matter. My powers of eloquence or logic or debate. All the coercion, all the physical and emotional manipulation, the dimming of the lights, the soft music, the putting people deceptively in the auditorium so that when the invitation is given, Christians walk forward, making it easier for lost people to walk forward because they're being deceived, believing that others are coming forward to accept Christ to all this type of manipulation that goes on is vain. Because the only thing that can save a man is a supernatural work of God that is at least equal, but I believe greater than the very manifestation of the power of God in creation of the universe. So you see, as a preacher, when I begin to realize that men are this way, that they must be raised from the dead, then I no longer trust in the arm of the flesh. I trust in what? The power of the gospel. And as I said this afternoon, I said again at lunch, the more we separate ourselves from the power of the flesh, the more we refuse to use the arm of the flesh, the more we rely upon only, thus saith the Lord and prophesied to the wind that the spirit would come and breathe on these slain. The more that we do that, the more we will see a manifestation of the power of God. And the more we rely on all these broken staffs, all these deceptive measures, the more we rely on these things, the less we will see God, the less we will see him. I like to refer to it as Gideon's call. That we should constantly be practicing a Gideon's call in our ministry. Am I too large? Am I too big? Am I trusting in too much of the flesh? Or am I just one tiny little pitiful man who has no power, but is called to proclaim the most powerful message? You see, don't you understand this is the whole concept behind why God uses the weak and God uses the broken and God chooses the runt of the litter. This is the way it works. We are called to do the impossible. This is impossible, everything about authentic Christianity is impossible. If it can be explained or if it can be carried out with a certain methodology, it is not authentic Christianity. I'm going to wait for my notes for a moment, but this is irresistible. I've got to say this, I want you to think about Christianity for a moment. One of the greatest proofs that Christianity is true is that it continued beyond the first century. It was the most ludicrous. Message in any context, you take a cultural context, it was ludicrous, you take a religious context, it was blasphemous. You take a logical or philosophical context. It was absolutely absurd. Can you imagine Paul the Apostle walking in among amongst a bunch of Roman or Greek philosophers and they're all debating? And here comes this little Jew from Palestine. And he walks in and they turn around, they look at him, they despise him because of who he is. From the moment they look at him, they despise him. And then he says, can I say something? It's almost like a joke. Sure, go ahead. I saw when I was walking in here all your gods and I just want you to know you're wrong about all of them. As a matter of fact, everything you believe about reality is wrong. Can you imagine these men? Oh, this is good. OK, well, tell us more. What is reality? Well, I've come here to bring you the good news. And what is that good news? That God became a man, the worst thing you can tell a Greek philosopher is that spirit became material, that they joined together. It's an absolute impossibility. It's not going to happen. It's ludicrous, totally unacceptable, not going to accept it no way whatsoever. But for the sake of the joke, they brought him to continue. God became a man. Yes, he was he was born. Well, who was his mother? It's a Jewish girl named Mary. Well, who was the dad? Well, he didn't have one. Oh, this just keeps getting better. He didn't have a dad. Well, this Jewish girl, I suppose she was the the princess of all of Israel. Well, no, she was a she's a very, very poor girl. And so this God became a man born through her. No father. And I guess then what happened? Well, he became a carpenter, a contractor of sorts. And then when he was around 30 years old, he presented himself to Israel. And I suppose then they said, well, all of Israel just bowed down and worshiped him, accepted him as their great king. We haven't heard news of this. No, as a matter of fact, they didn't. They crucified him as a demon possessed, crazy man and a blasphemer. And Rome as a traitor. Oh, and and and he's God. Yes. And on the third day, he rose again from the dead. We believe this very strongly, Paul. Well, how many people saw it? Not many. He didn't appear to all of Israel. He just appeared to some of us. And some of us out of time. And where is he now, Paul? Well, he ascended up into heaven to do what? To sit down at the right hand of God. So what should we make of this, Paul? Oh, well, what you've got to realize is Caesar isn't Lord. Jesus is. And not only Lord of Rome and Israel. But of every kingdom on this earth. He is a stone cut without hands that have been thrown down upon the nations. He's king of kings and lord of lords. And one day he will come back and judge the living and the dead. I want you to know that's the most preposterous thing that he could have told those people. And yet some of them followed him out. Why did they follow him out? I'll tell you why they followed him out for the same reason. If I go into the Aguadona tribe and I talk to a group of men and some of them are converted, it's the same reason. It's not because that Aguadona tribesmen understood 10 historical legal evidences with regard to the resurrection. He believed because when I was preaching the gospel, the spirit of the living God came, illumined his mind, took out his heart of stone, gave him a heart of flesh and bore witness to the gospel. And he believed to such a point he died that very day rather than deny Christ. That is the reason why Christianity continued and continues today. It is a supernatural religion and there is no other explanation for authentic Christianity. There's no other explanation. Chinese believer came here many years ago and it said that this is what he said. He said, it's amazing what all all your churches here in America. It's amazing everything you can accomplish without God. What what these truths that my brother was preaching this morning, we were preaching. What it's all about is this. That we are prophets and we are in a valley of dry bones, and the only way these bones are going to come to life is through a supernatural working of the spirit of God. And so as men of God, we cut ourselves free from all human health and we proclaim the say of the Lord. And we know if we preach long enough, bones are going to rattle. Sinew is going to come, the spirit will breathe upon them and they will live. They will live. Now, I want to talk tonight about spiritual death and moral inability, because it seems that it's very, very confusing for many people, because when I hear the enemies of what I believe talk about moral inability, basically what they're saying is that I'm saying and that you're saying that, as the brother described in his sermon, that we've got all these people who can't come to God even if they want to. And that's not what we mean at all. Now, I want to read this. If man did not love or obey God because he lacked the mental faculties to do so or was somehow physically restrained from doing so, then it would be unfair for God to hold him accountable. It would be unjust. It would be immoral in a sense. Just like if you were to tell a blind man that he must read from a certain book that's not Braille and if he does not read from it, he'll be punished. It's immoral to punish that man. But this is not what we mean when we refer to the moral inability of men. Now, let me continue reading. Man's inability is moral. And it stems from his hostility toward God's man is unable to love God. Why? Why is he unable to love God? Because he hates God. He is unable to obey God because he disdains his commands. He is unable to please God because he does not hold the glory and good pleasure of God to be a worthy goal. Man is not a victim, but a culprit. He cannot because he will not. His corruption and enmity toward God are so great that he would rather suffer eternal perdition than acknowledge God to be God and submit to his sovereignty. That's what we mean when we say that men can not come to God. They cannot come because they will not come and they will not come because they hate God and they hate God because God is good and they hate a good God because they are evil. That's what we mean. Now, I want to give you a wonderful illustration. Look in Genesis 37 for this is a wonderful biblical illustration. It says this about Joseph's brothers and Joseph. His brothers saw that their father loved him more than all his brothers, and so they hated him. Now, listen to what it says, and could not speak to him on friendly terms. Now, listen to what it says here. Here's some inability here. They could not speak to him on friendly terms. They could not speak to him kindly. They could not do it. Now, did they speak a different language? Absolutely not. Were they mute? Absolutely not. So why could they not? They simply could not bring themselves to speak kindly to Joseph. Why? Because they hated him. And this is what we mean. And this shows, it proves, it demonstrates that man is not a victim and we are not presenting man as the victim who wants to be saved. We're talking about a culprit who refuses to be saved and does everything in his power to keep from being saved. Why? Because he hates God. That's what we mean when we talk about moral inability. Let me give you another illustration. We've all seen elderly people who were very, very bitter. I tell a woman who is married to a man and she hasn't spoken to him for 15 years. And I say, you have to forgive him. And she says, I can not. What do you mean you cannot? Don't you see it has eaten your life in two like acid? Your heart reeks with bitterness. I cannot forgive him because of what he's done to me. I cannot. I will not. Oh, there's the case. I will not. Why will she will not? Because her hatred, her animosity toward him is so great. That is why she will not. Let me give you another case. A man has tried for treason and proved to be a great traitor against the king. But the king and his graciousness comes down to the prison where the man has been sentenced, been condemned to spend the rest of his life in a dungeon. And the king comes and says, sir. I am a gracious king, slow to anger and full of compassion. He takes and sticks a key in the door and opens it up and he says, come forth. All you have to do is acknowledge my sovereignty. The man stands up with seething hatred in his face, walks over and slams the prison door, I would rather rot in hell than bow my head. That's what we're talking about. That's what we mean when we mean when we say. That men are spiritually dead and morally unable. Now, I want to talk about something else, the bondage of the will and free will. This is very important. I want to talk about it. Let me read from my notes. Man's will. Now, this shows us the superficiality of Christianity today. Man's will is an expression of his nature. The two things are united, my friend. You must understand this, there is this direct link. Unbreakable link between two things, a man's will and a man's nature, what he is and what he decides to do, they cannot be separated. So man's will is an expression of his nature. If man possessed a morally pure nature, then his will would be inclined to doing acts that were morally pure. If man were holy and righteous, he would love a holy and righteous God. And he would love and obey God's commands, however, fallen man possesses a morally corrupt nature, and so his will is inclined to doing acts that are morally corrupt. Fallen man is unholy and unrighteous, therefore he hates a holy and righteous God, fights against his truth and refuses to submit to his commands. You see, again, it comes back to this. A man does according to what he is. Now, you can cage that you can coerce that and you can manipulate that, but he still is what he is. Let me give you an example. You take a predator like a coyote and you realize that the coyotes are eating a lot of your sheep, so you catch the coyote. Well, you can do several things with the coyote. First of all, if you want to stop him from eating sheep, you can kill him. Now, that solves the sheep's problem. It solves your problem, but it doesn't solve the coyotes problem. There's another thing you can do. You can capture the coyote and put him in a cage and he's the sheep are OK, the farmer's OK. And in one sense, at least the coyotes in a little better state. Not doing as much damage, not adding crimes to his list, but here's the problem, he's still a coyote and he's pacing back and forth in that cage and you give him one window of opportunity and he will shoot out of that cage like a rocket with one intention in his heart, and that is to eat sheep. That is a religious man. He still hates God. He still hates God's commands. But out of self-preservation or out of the opinions of others, the stigma of sin, he will cage himself and try to do good. But the moment someone is not looking, he will feed. On the lust of his heart. That's religion. That's religion. That's why in so many churches today to make them presentable, you have to coerce them, manipulate them, pour legalism upon them. Why? Because their natures have not been changed. You talk to them about grace and they'll run wild like most of the Southern Baptists. But you get a converted bunch of people and you talk to them about grace. You tell them they're free and they're under unconditional love, they will strive for greater holiness. You see, this is very, very important. Now, does man possess a free will? Before I read this, let me just put something I don't have in my notes. When you ever when you start talking about free will, you need to be very, very careful because a lot of men will speak about free will and they don't realize they're actually blaspheming. Now, let's look about this for a moment. I mean, everyone's talking about man has free will. Man has free will. Don't you realize that free will is an attribute that actually belongs only to God? It is an attribute that is not found in men. I mean, even a good Armenian theologian will recognize that there is only one being who is truly free and it's God. You're not free. You are coerced and manipulated by your culture, by your past, by your parents, by what culture is going to think about your actions. Everything you do is coerced and manipulated and influenced. Don't you realize that you're not free? You're not free, you are a product. Of so many winds of ideas, you're not free. So when we talk about free will, you need to be very careful and realize, first of all, that this is only God is free. Only God is is not coerced. Only God is not manipulated. Only God is not subject to the influences of culture and public opinion. So you see right there, we've destroyed the whole idea, haven't we? No one's free. Are you going to tell me that that if you're going to look at it from a human perspective, that the boy born in in Iran. To a leader of the Muslim faith is just as free to accept Christianity as you are born in a Christian home. You see, no one's free. But let's look at it for a moment. Man, when we talk about free will, this is what I want to say. Man is free to choose as he pleases. OK, man is free to choose as he pleases, but because his nature is morally depraved, it pleases him to turn away from good and choose evil, to hate truth and believe a lie to deny God and fight against his will. In one sense, we can say that man has a free will. The problem is man does not have a good will. His will is in bondage to his nature, his nature is evil, and so his will is inclined to that which contradicts the nature and will of God. Now, let me talk to you. Let's throw in the idea of affections. Jonathan Edwards wrote a lot on this. It's very, very important. This has to do with the lost man, it has to do with the Christian man, and it goes down to this. Paul said, look, I'm not talking about circumcision or uncircumcision. I'm talking about a new creation, a new creature, any man being Christ. He's a new creature. Now, what is the idea here that he's trying to communicate to us? A nature that is holy, that is righteous, that is good, is going to have what kind of affections? Holy and righteous and good affections. And those affections are going to drive that person and determine his decisions. But a man who has an evil heart, a radically depraved heart, a heart that is at odds with God, his affections. Are evil, he desires things that are wrong and those wrong desires drive him. This is very important, and I hope you're following me here now. I want us to look at two texts in the scriptures, let's go to Matthew seven and verse 16. Jesus says, you will know them by their fruits. Grapes are not gathered from thorn bushes nor figs from thistles, are they? Now, what is the whole point? He is connecting what? The fruit of the tree with the nature of the tree, that the fruit is going to be conformed to the nature of the tree. And he is saying you can know the nature of the tree by the fruit. For example, I do not know what an apple leaf looks like and I do not know what apple bark looks like, but I know what an apple looks like. And if I see an apple hanging from a tree, I know it's an apple tree. And what he is trying to get through our heads is this inseparable relationship between nature and what a person does, the kind of fruit they produce, you see. Now, so Christianity is not about you making a decision. It involves that. But it's about your nature being changed, you see that and who can do that? Only God. And how has God promised to do that through his spirit? And how has he promised for his spirit to most work through the preaching of the gospel, unadulterated, simple preaching of the gospel? Now, he goes on and he says, verse 17, so every good tree bears good fruit, but the bad tree bears bad fruit. He is just coming back to us again with the same thing. You have a good tree, you have good fruit. You have a bad tree, you have bad fruit. That's just the way it is. There is an intricate relationship between the two things. Now, listen to this verse 18. A good tree cannot produce bad fruit, nor a bad tree produce good fruit. Again, all he's doing is it's the relationship between nature and will the relationship between the nature of a thing and the thing it produces. Now, here's something I want you to think. Even even the typical evangelical in America will say this, they'll say a bad tree cannot produce good fruit. That's what they'll say. I mean, we know that. And I'm glad they say that. That's true. They'll say, look, you can't please God. You can't do any good works to save you. I praise God that the evangelical community still holds on to that truth. You know, you need Jesus and that's true. But isn't it amazing they only quote one part of this text? They don't produce the they don't quote the other part of the text. And look what it says. Not only does it say a bad tree cannot produce good fruit, but it says a good tree cannot produce bad fruit. What is he saying? I'll tell you what he's saying. A true Christian cannot live like an unconverted man. Cannot. Cannot. You say, brother, are you saying a Christian can't sin? No, I didn't say that Christians sin. You're saying a Christian doesn't struggle. No, he struggled with sin. You say Christian can't fall into sin. No, a Christian can fall into sin. He cannot stay there. He cannot live a life of continuous carnality because his nature has been changed. And not only that, he can count upon the providence of God who will not allow it. So if you see a person who is living in open, flagrant, continuous carnality, you're looking at a lost person. Now, the true Christian, the most godly Christian will struggle with sin. He will. A true Christian can fall into grievous sin. Read the Westminster, read the 1689. It is possible. We all know how we have struggled with sin. We all know the secret things in our life. We all know our moral failures. But we do know this, that we seem to have been literally held captive or made captive by God, that he has changed us. We are new creatures. We cannot, no, we cannot any longer live that way. Let me give you an example. Let's say that a man is lost and he's hurrying off to work, snowing outside. He's late for work. Papers are falling out of his briefcase. He hasn't eaten. He's walking out the door. He's got his door on the handle. And his wife runs down the stairs and says, honey, take the trash out before you go. Seems she does that all the time. He hates it. He spins around and he goes, you take the trash out. Don't you realize I'm late? Don't you realize I'm gonna lose my job? My papers are falling out. The car's not going to start. I got to get the ice off the window. You take out the trash. You know, he walks out the door totally and completely justified in his own mind. She deserved that he gets in the car justified, he goes to work, he laughs about it with his friends. Well, three months later, he gets saved. Nine months later, it's snowing again. He really got saved. It's been a Christian for nine months. It's snowing again. He's late for work again. His papers are falling out of his briefcase. He reaches for the door handle. He's all upset. He didn't have a quiet time or whatever you guys call it. He didn't do all the things he was supposed to do. He reaches for the door handle. His wife comes down in the big fluffy slippers in the Medusa look and says, take out the trash. And without even thinking, he turns around and goes, you take out the trash. Don't you understand? I'm late. There's ice on the window. I'm going to get fired. You take out the trash. And you say, what's the difference? The moment he does it, a dagger goes straight through his heart and he might fight against it and walk out the door. But he goes to that car and he's miserable. He tries to go through his meeting. He can't even think any longer. Finally, he has to be dismissed from the board meeting. And he walks out, he picks up the cell phone, he goes, I'm so sorry. I'm an idiot. Forgive me. I just forgive me. There's just no excuse. Why is he like that? Because he's a new creature. He can't live in that relationship any longer with sin. It kills him. Now, he may buck up, he may fight against it. He may even go a day or two. He may even go farther. But I can tell you this, heaven will come after him. And not only that, but his nature no longer has an affinity with that kind of sin. It's eating him alive. You know, the old illustration of Spurgeon, you know, I have a plate of fine food here and a plate of garbage here. And there's a pig in the back of the church. And I say, loose him and let him go. The pig runs right to the garbage. Why? He is a pig. It's what pigs do. He eats the garbage. He loves the garbage. He wags his tail and he's unashamed. But let's say I step over there and I have the power in a millisecond to transform that pig into a man at that very moment. The food, the garbage he was eating down, he throws up. He cannot contain it in a human stomach. He's no longer of that nature. The very thing he was delighting in now is a horrid thing to him. He's trying to be free from it. And then he turns around and looks at you and he's ashamed. Why? He's a new creature. We have lost this. This is the problem in the Southern Baptist Convention right here. We no longer understand who man is. We no longer understand who God is. We no longer understand what it takes for a man to be saved. And we no longer understand what happens to a man when he truly gets saved. And that's why we're in the mess we're in. Jesus said, you will know them by their fruits. Now, I want you to go to Matthew 12 for just a moment. Look what he says there. Another another instance of how the nature and the will are together in Matthew chapter 12, verse 34. He says, you brood of vipers, how can you now look at this? How can you? It's moral inability being evil. Speak what is good. For the mouth speaks out of that which fills the heart, the good man brings out of his good treasure, what is good and the evil man brings out of his evil treasure, what is evil? I mean, this is an undeniable relationship. This is ontology at its best. This is what it means to be human. And. Our will is in bondage to our nature and our hearts are evil, so our will is inclined toward evil and that's what he's teaching. Now, I want to talk about moral inability in specific areas of a man. First of all, the Bible says that a man cannot love God. Fallen man cannot love God. I don't care where I go. Almost everybody declares that in some shape, form or fashion, even the irreligious will declare that they love God. Well, I love God, everyone is a self-proclaimed lover of God, but that's not what the scriptures teach. Most who claim a love for God. Most, the great majority of those who claim a love for God have almost no biblical knowledge whatsoever of God's attributes. The God that they love is a figment of their own imagination. They have made a God with their mind and they love the God they have made. That is why Sunday morning in America is the greatest hour of idolatry in the entire week, because most of the people sitting there, even with their hands in the air, worshiping God, are worshiping a God that looks frighteningly, it looks exactly like them. A God who is the product of their heart, a God who will give me my best life now. A God who will prosper me, a God who will help me attain my goals and our evangelism falls right in with that, doesn't it? God, God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life. Really? Yeah, God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life. Man, that's good news because I got wonderful plans for my life. You're saying God's got wonderful plans for my life. I got wonderful plans for my life. And is this God's going to help me with all these wonderful plans for my life? Yeah. I'll take three of them. Do you see? God said you made a terrible error. He said to Israel, you thought I was like you. Now, I want you to look at something a preacher asked me years ago. He said, I want you to come to my church and preach on the attributes of God. And and I said, are you sure? He said, well, attributes of God. I said, brother, I want to split your church. He says, split my church. We're Christians. It's attributes of God. What can go wrong? I said, brother, the moment I start talking about sovereignty, justice and holiness, here's what's going to happen. Some of those fine little gray haired ladies in WMU, they are going to turn into beasts and they're going to stand up and march out of that church and say, my God's not like that. I could never love a God like. Do you see? Do you realize that you could go in to most Southern Baptist churches and you could preach on the attributes of God and literally a riot would break out? And I'm not talking about some some, you know, ultra charismatic, ultra Calvinistic view of this fiery God that hates everybody. You know, you are holy and I'm a worm. Step on me and watch me squirm. I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about just taking basic evangelical old orthodoxy and teaching it in a modern evangelical church. And you will cause a riot. A riot, when you do, you start seeing who hates God. Isn't it amazing? I love doing this. People will tell me they'll go, well, I've been to Bible college. Oh, good. I've been seminarian. So wonderful. And I always ask them this question, how many years in seminary did you study the attributes of God? And they go, well, you know, I had a semester of systematic theology. And I go in that time, how much time did you spend studying the attributes of God? Well, I don't know, four weeks. The greatest knowledge a man can possess is the attributes of God. Rich men shouldn't boast in their wealth, strong men in their strength, or wise men in their wisdom. The one who boasts should boast in this, that he knows me. We should be spending a lifetime studying the attributes of God. The great problem going on here in America is no one knows who God is. No one knows who God is. And when men do find it out, they hate Him. See, if I just narrowed it down, I can even teach biblical things about God and still be on the Oprah Winfrey show. I could if I could even teach soundly Orthodox things if I just left some things out. Do you realize that? And that's what many ministers are doing, many of the big names in Christianity today within this very denomination, that's how they build their churches. They do this and they are awarded for it. When Christ comes back, it will be terrifying as he throws pastor after pastor into hell. Oh, don't worry about losing your reward. Worry about losing your soul to go down into that place and meet all the people that you sent there. The Bible says in Romans 130 specifically calls men haters of God. In Romans 5, 10 specifically refers to them as enemies of God, and some people will try to play that card that, well, men are enemies of God, but God's not the enemy of man. I'm sorry, the Bible just totally disproves you on that point. God told Israel, you've grieved my spirit, I make I make myself your enemy. God is coming back to this planet and he is going to be the great majority's enemy. They will fight against him and he will fight against them, but in their fighting against him, they will be like a tiny wax figurine before a blast furnace. Why would any rational creature hate the very God who brought that creature into existence and lovingly sustains it? Our brother pointed this out clearly in John 3, 19 and 20. This is the judgment that light has come into the world and men loved darkness rather than light for their deeds were evil. You know, I'm always hearing this thing. If we could just, you know, if we just lived like Jesus, the whole world would be converted. Now, if we lived like Jesus, we'd all get crucified. You need to understand that Christ incarnate was rejected by his own. Why? Because unless the spirit of God changes the heart, the more of Christ they see, the more they will hate Christ. Now, Jesus said in John 7, 7, the world cannot hate you, but it hates me because I testify of it, that its deeds are evil. And you know what? Christ doesn't even have to open his mouth. He just has to stand there and everyone is convicted by their sins. Now, fallen man cannot know the things of God. Now, many of our of those who would be against what we teach, they say, well, if a man cannot know, then how can he be responsible? A man cannot know because he will not know. It is not the case of a hiding God. It is the case of a hiding man. As a matter of fact, I want to put before you that on the day of judgment or the second coming of Christ or sometime in the eschaton, I think what is going to happen is this, that when Christ comes back, all men are going to realize that the message of God, the redemptive message of God was written on every leaf of every tree. And we could not see it because of our sin, because we did not want to see it. We would follow the most ludicrous things like evolution and so on and so forth, anything in an attempt to escape the knowledge of God. Listen to what Job says about the wicked in 21, 14 and 15. They say to God, depart from us. We do not even desire the knowledge of your ways. Who is the almighty that we should serve him? And what should we gain if we entreat him? Now, I want you to look at something very important truths in this passage. First of all, depart from us. We do not even desire the knowledge of your ways. That's what's happened. I watched the film a few years ago because they told me that that it was an idea of heaven is portrayed in the film. It was what dreams may come. Robin Williams was in it. He was a doctor and his family's killed and he's killed and he goes to heaven. He's actually an agnostic. He goes to heaven because in Hollywood, everybody goes to heaven but Christians. And he goes to heaven and he's like looking at this angel and he goes. Heaven's real. And the angel goes, yeah, and he goes, well, if heaven's real, then. Is there a God? And the angel goes, yeah, there is. Now, listen. And he says, where is he? And the angel goes up there. We've removed him from earth. He's given us no revelation. He cannot be known, according to our experts, he's in heaven. Now we get to heaven. They've moved him one step further. Always get away from me. That's why this silly, exploratory, evangelistic question, would you like to go to heaven? Everyone wants to go to heaven, they just don't want God to be there when they get there. They want heaven, they want utopia, they don't want God. And just the irrationality of an idea of a godless heaven. Just think about this. It's a place where unchanged people go and get everything they want. I submit to you that the logical conclusion is they're going to be a lot of wars in heaven. Everybody wants to heaven the way they want. They get what they want. They do what they want. And they do this throughout all of eternity. No, my friend, for heaven to be heaven, there has to be a sovereign God, one sovereign standard, and there has to be hearts transformed to love that standard. And C.S. Lewis is writing there in the last volume of the Chronicles of Narnia when they get to this tree and all the little animals are running through this thing that is something of a heaven. And one of them sees this tree and says, it's the most gorgeous thing. The fruit upon it is beautiful. I so desire to eat of that fruit. Do you think it's prohibited that I eat of this fruit? And the answer comes back. I think we're finally in a place where nothing is prohibited. That's what heaven is. It's a place where nothing is prohibited. Why? Because all your desires are pure. The fact that we have law, the fact that we have fences is evidence that we are a fallen people. We have to be restricted and restrained in our evil. In heaven, every desire is met because every desire is godlike. And pure. Now, Romans 118, for the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth and unrighteousness. Listen to me, there is no such thing as an atheist. There is no such thing as an atheist. Do not accept that argument. The Bible does not acknowledge atheism. And you say, yeah, it does. It says a fool says in his heart there is no God. It doesn't say an atheist says in his heart there is no God. It says a fool says in their heart there is no God. And why is he a fool? Because he knows there is. And he is suppressing the truth that he knows. Now, why would men do that? Why would men suppress what they know to be true because they hate it? This is why the Puritans referred to sin as insanity. If you ever asked yourself the question, if the devil is so wise and knows he's going to lose, why does he still fight against God? It's not that he thinks he can win. It's that he hates God. I'll rot in hell, but I'll fight you every step of the way. You think fallen man is any better? There's where you're wrong. There's where you're wrong. Does it bother you? When someone says, well, this thing about, you know, particular atonement and all this, that if God didn't send it for everybody, I'm not going to believe in that kind of God. I always say to them this. I say the angels fell. Quite supreme to us. Quite more valuable than us, they fell. God sent them no savior. Now, why are you not troubled about that? God doesn't have to send anyone to save you. The fact that he did is a marvel. Now, let's go on. I'm going to go through this as quickly as possible. Man cannot obey and man cannot please God. Why? Romans eight, seven through eight, because the mind set on the flesh is hostile toward God, for it does not subject itself to the law of God, for it is not even able to do so. And those who are in the flesh cannot please God. Why is this? It's because of who man is. Now, fallen man cannot seek God. Our brother has already cleared that up for us. We don't really need to go back there. Everyone proclaims to be a seeker after God and God just simply answers and says, no, it is all a lie. You do not seek after me. You do not. I remember one time, well, in Spain, one of the most probably the most influential philosopher in Spain is a man by the name of Unamuno, and he wrote a book many years ago called La Vida es un Sueño, Life is a Dream. And in that book, basically what I get out of it is he argues this, the greatest and most noble thing that you can be as a seeker of the truth and the most absurd, stupid, arrogant thing you could ever say is that you found it. That's very convenient. I was actually debating one time with a Spaniard and after going back and forth and he was a very he was a he was a follower of Unamuno, I finally looked at him and I said, I've got you pegged. This is a wonderful thing you've got going, a magnificent ruse. You have the nobility of calling yourself a seeker after the truth, but you claim it cannot be found because you do not want it to be found because the moment it is found, you have to submit to it. And that is not something you can bear with an unchanged heart. Do you see that? Men do not seek the truth because they do not want to know it, they will believe every sort of absurdity, but they will not take the truth to heart. Now, I want us to go on. I want to talk for just a second about dealing with souls in this matter of of the moral depravity of men. First of all, I have many cases where a person will come to me and there seems to be all the evidence in the world that they truly desire conversion, but it seems that they are struggling through it. They are really struggling through it. And I've seen people struggle through it for months. The worst thing you can do, though, is intervene with some man made methodology in order to give them some assurance. Like most of the people walking around Mississippi, they're not trusting in Christ, they're trusting in the sincerity of their decision. They're not looking unto Jesus, they made a decision. So when someone like me preaches to them, they go, don't worry about me, I done did that. But here's one of the wonderful things about the doctrine of radical depravity or pervasive depravity or man cannot seek God. If I find a person who seems genuinely drawn to seeking after God, but still has not come to the point of peace, I'm able to give them great hope to continue on. I say, look at you. The Bible says no man can seek after God. And yet here you are seeking after God. This should give you great assurance, because if you are truly seeking, then he has begun a good work in you. And if he has begun a good work in you, he will finish it. Go on, go on, press on, press in the violence, take it by force, by force, seek him. You've probably heard me say this so many times, but I've heard any of my sermons, but it was one of the most wonderful moments in my life. I was up near Alaska. I was up just a few miles from Alaska preaching. And as I got up in the pulpit, the back doors of the church opened up and this mountain of a man came in. He's about 65 years old. He could have walked every man in this building 30 years and under. He was a giant of a man. He sat down on the front row and saddest human being I think I've ever seen. Immediately, I just began to preach the gospel, preach the gospel. It's just me and him in that church after that moment, preach the gospel. And afterwards, I went down. I said, sir, what is wrong with you? You're the saddest human being I've ever seen in my life. He pulled out a manila envelope and had X-rays on it. And he said, I just came from the doctor and they said I'm going to die in three weeks. He said, I've lived out in the bush all my life on a cattle ranch. You can only get there by by going down the river or a plane. He said, I've never been scared of anything in my life, but I'm terrified because I know I'm going to die because I believe there's a God. And one time I heard somebody talk to me about some guy named Jesus and I don't understand any of this and I'm going to die. And I said, yes, sir, you are. I said, did you understand, did you hear the message? He said, yes, I heard the message. I said, did you understand the message? He said, I did. Anyone could have understood that message. A little child could have understood it. Now, what what would have most evangelists done at that point? Well, would you like to go to heaven? Would you like to pray and ask Jesus come into your heart? And after the guy prayed, were you sincere or did he save you? And the guy would probably say, I don't know. And then the evangelist says, well, of course he did, because he promised in Revelation 320 and if he promised it, he's not a liar. And if he didn't come in, he's a liar. And we know he's not a liar. So you're saying you think that's extravagant. I've heard that argument thousands of times. Pathetic. It's diabolical. And I said, sir, you understood it. He said, well, I understood it. Is that all? I said, sir, this is the way it's going to be. I said, you're going to die in three weeks. So I'm supposed to leave tomorrow on a plane. I'll cancel my plane. And here's what we'll do. We'll sit here for three weeks and go over the promises of God until either you get saved or you die and go to hell. And we sat down that night. It was on the front row and he had my Bible in his lap. I'll never forget those huge hands of his. And we went through what? Promise after promise, after promise, after promise, after promise, after promise, after promise. He would read, I would explain, we would pray. He would read, I would explain, we would pray. And after about an hour and a half or so, I don't know how long it was, actually. We came to John 3, 16, which we had already read so many times, and I said, sir, here's one. Here's my most favorite verse in the whole Bible. I said, read it again. Just read it. And he said, well, we've read this. I said, just just read it. So all we have is the scriptures, sir, and the spirit of God will seek him in the scriptures. And that man looked down at that Bible and he said, oh, all right. And he goes, OK, for God so loved the world. That he gave his only begotten son. And he went, oh, no, I have eternal life, I have it, all my sins are gone. I believe in Jesus. All my sins are gone. I have eternal life. I said, sir, how do you know that? He said, haven't you ever read this verse before? Do you see what happened? I'll tell you what happened. What happened is what can almost never happen in Southern Baptist preaching. The spirit of the living God opened up his heart, illuminated his mind, and he was born again. That's what happened. And it is glorious. And it cannot happen. With all these boys running around and some of them quite old with all their silly little gimmicks, claiming as though they were Catholic priests to be able to change wine and bread into the blood and body of Christ with all their gimmicks that they can bring a man to heaven. It makes me want to vomit. They want to go to another church. They want to go out to eat after they finish their preaching because someone else can do the counseling. Then they want to go down to the next Southern Baptist church and boast about how many people who got saved who did not. And it stinks like rot in the nostrils of God. And it must stop. It will stop one way or the other. But. These are souls, these are souls, you deal with them, you stay up all night with them. Christ said, Paul said, is giving birth that Christ be formed in you. Oh, young man, don't don't join that carnival of clowns, preach the gospel, preach the gospel. Now, we don't have time to to go into some of the things I really want to get into, but I want to touch two more verses just quickly. Brother read them. I'm going to read them again. John six forty four. No man can come to me unless the father who sent me draws him and I will raise him up on the last day. John six sixty five. And he was saying, for this reason, I said to you that no one can come to me unless it has been granted him from the father. Now, we are all familiar with the doctrine of irresistible grace. I love the doctrine, but I think that the terminology is very misleading. There I said irresistible grace communicates things, it's not really what the doctrine is saying. And enemies of the truth have used this terminology in order to say that we're saying that some people want to be saved and cannot be, and that other people don't want to be saved and God drags them to heaven. Now, I just have to assume that no man can be that ignorant, it must be a moral thing, they must have decided to twist the truth about us. I know of no person who teaches that. No serious theologian, no serious sovereign grace man who would ever teach something like that. So what do we mean by irresistible grace? I believe that we mean regeneration and the work of the spirit of God. Now, let me explain this to you. Let's let's put everything all together now. If the tree is evil. The fruit is evil, if the heart is evil, all that can be done is evil. If the heart is evil, it will reject the good. If the heart is evil, it will reject God. All our hearts are evil. Now, here's the six million dollar question. If all our hearts are evil. And we are all haters of God. And according to Paul, the greater revelation of God leads to greater animosity on our part, then how can we be saved? Here's another question. Some seed fell on good soil. Now, if I'm Arminian, I have to say that there are some men walking around with good hearts. I have to say that. I cannot say that and not be orthodox. I cannot say that. So in order for seed to fall on good soil, something has to happen to the soil. At least before or at the same time that seed hits it. Now, what is really happening? Some preachers will say this, they'll say, you know, if we could just show the world, Jesus, they would be converted. So let's say that I have a big drapery or a curtain back here and all of you are unconverted and there behind that curtain is Jesus. That's what revelation means to run the curtain. And so with a magnificent preaching, I pull the cord and I show you, Jesus, will you be saved? No. Why? You're blind. Everyone admits that on both sides, both camps. You're blind. OK, so that's not going to do you much good. So someone will say, yes, that's true, that the spirit of God has to come and give them sight. OK, so I preach and I pull the cord, the curtain is removed. Christ is revealed and you're given sight. Is that all that's needed? No more is needed. Why? Because you have a heart that loves evil and hates righteousness. So when you get with those new eyes of yours and you look upon the righteousness of Christ, all it's going to cause you to do is hate him all the more. So the preacher preaches the spirit of God, pulls back the curtain. The spirit of God gives sight to your eyes. But the spirit of God also has to take out your God hating, fallen, Adamic heart and make a new heart there. He has to take out that rotten, rocky soil and he has to put good soil in its place. There has to be a supernatural recreation. That is why we have Genesis one. Genesis one is a good chapter for apologists who want to prove creationism. And I applaud them for it. But that's not the purpose of Genesis one. The purpose of Genesis one is redemptive to show the work of the spirit of God and the soul of a man. That is the spirit of God hovered over that chaos, over that water. So the spirit of God in the preaching of the gospel hovers over the heart of a man and recreates it. So that what happens in the preaching of the gospel, the spirit of God recreates that heart in the image of God and true righteousness and holiness, and that heart is new and it has new and righteous affections. And those eyes are thrown open. And for the first time in your life, you look upon Christ and you see him and your heart is righteous with righteous affections and you must have him. It is irresistible beauty is what it is. You must have him in the same way that when your heart was wicked and sin was set before you, you must have it. You must have it. You're irresistibly drawn to it. But when the gospel is preached and God works upon the heart, that new heart has new affections that long for righteousness. And Christ is the end of all righteousness. And your eyes are thrown open and you see him and you must have him. That's what we're talking about. And that's a beautiful thing. That's a beautiful thing. And that's what he's talking. This is what he's saying. And this is why when you learn these things, young man, their application will transform your ministry. You don't go to conferences to learn strategies and cultural sensitivity and and all these other things, how to be relevant. You don't go to pollsters to find out what the people want to hear from God. You go to God to find out what he wants to tell the people you preach for the gospel. Your closet is your home. You're a man before God more than you are a man before men. You fight with God and it makes it easy to fight with men. And you preach the gospel. And you watch bones rattle and come together. Now, tomorrow, I'm going to change the course of this, but just look in Ezekiel 37 and I will tell you what each man has attempted to do. In this pulpit. Today, Ezekiel 37, don't worry, I'm not going to preach the whole text. Since verse one, the hand of the Lord was upon me, you understand doctrine. That's good. Let me ask you a question, is the hand of the Lord upon you? Has he anointed you with the Holy Spirit? Now, there's a question that the old Calvinist would understand. There are some old Calvinist in this building who believe in the anointing and the power of the Holy Spirit, and they know when it's not there, maybe that's what separates the old Calvinist from the new ones. The hand of the Lord was upon me and he brought me out by the spirit of the Lord and set me down in the middle of the valley and it was full of bones. Now, here's what we have attempted to do all this day. He caused me to pass among them around about and behold, there were very many on the surface of the valley and though they were very dry, what did the spirit of God do with that prophet? He led him all over that valley until he became absolutely convinced that these bones were dead, they weren't sick, they were dead. Not only were they dead, they were dry, there was no life in the morrow, there was nothing. And I would submit to you that until a preacher comes to that conclusion. That he is preaching to dead, dry bones, he cannot understand the necessity of the power of God in preaching to raise men from the dead, and that's what we've attempted to to take some of you around and show you these bones, they are very dry. You cannot, you cannot. And then he says, son of man, can these bones live? And the son of man, you man of flesh, you finite creature. What does he say in Isaiah, don't fear man, why would you fear man? All he is is one nose full of breath at a time. Can these bones live? And this is the wonderful thing. Oh, he's not a fatalist. He doesn't say no, there's no way whole world's going to hell and nothing can be done about it. He doesn't say that. He doesn't presume upon God either and say they they sure will live. He says this, you know, oh, Lord, you know, oh, the glory of living in and trusting in the power of the living God and the pathetic nature of the minister who does not know that or who has forgotten that. This is a supernatural endeavor. Tomorrow, I'm going to talk about the cross. You say, well, this is about depravity, you won't teach on man, yes. Remember, I told you that Christ in his incarnation. He waited around in that cesspool. Of rotten corpses spewing out their own filth, and I didn't get time to go into it with the text animated by the devil and by their own lustful desires, stirring up the filth of the water continuously like foaming waves of filth. And Christ in the incarnation waded into that pool and on the cross, he took a deep breath and plunged in head first to save his people. Let's pray.