Man's Ruin Enmity Against God

I remember hearing a story about an Englishman who loved good preaching, and every year this man would travel by horse from his home near London up to Scotland to hear the best preachers of his day. And the first preacher in Scotland he heard spoke on the majesty of God, that God was high and lifted up. The second preacher this man heard spoke on the wickedness of the human heart and its deceitfulness above all things.

And the third preacher he heard spoke on the loveliness of Christ. My message this evening, friends, is on the middle point, the wickedness of the human heart. I believe the doctrine of rune is such a neglected doctrine in our pulpits today that its absence explains much of the reason why our churches are so full of the unconverted.

Preachers of former days often preached up the doctrines of rune, redemption, repentance, and regeneration because they preached the full counsel of God. And I believe, friends, that the gospel must be preached in its proper order. And I believe you must confront people with the wickedness of their hearts and their lost and ruined condition because of sin.

Old time preachers knew better than most of us today because they preached up the doctrine of total depravity. It was George Whitefield who said that man was no more than half devil and half beast. And while Whitefield preached in the open air and more fields outside of London on this very subject, one of Whitefield's hearers climbed a tree and exposed himself as the crowd gasped in shock and embarrassment.

Whitefield quickly pointed to the man and cried in a loud voice. My hearers, look and see the living proof of my statement that man in his original state is half devil and half beast. I believe George Whitefield was right, friends, in describing the lost and ruined condition of man.

I'm going to bring before you a sermon that will upset a good number of you because it is a message on the universal total depravity and sinfulness of man. Tonight I will open up man's lost and ruined condition and hold a mirror up so you can gaze at your own reflection as we see what the word of God says about the wicked heart of man. Jeremiah 17 9 declares, the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked.

Who can know it? And I want us to look, friends, and take a hard and honest look at the plague of the heart. And the second aspect I'd like to bring before you this evening is that man has a poison in the blood, as seen from Romans chapter 5 and verse 15, which states, If through the offense of one many be dead, much more the grace of God, and the gift by grace, which is by one man, Jesus Christ, hath abounded unto many. Plague of the heart, poison in the blood, man's ruin, amnesty against God, and that's the title of my sermon, friends.

This is the kind of message that if you preach it, you can be pretty sure you'll be disinvited back by the church. Very few want to hear a message that's intended to strip the bark off the good deacons. But listen to this message, friends, if you care about your soul and the soul of others that flirt with a final destiny in hell.

Listen to me, friend, it would be different if I was addressing nice people, but I'm not. You're not nice people, but rune people. Man is a graveyard of corruption, dead, and sin.

My Bible says this about man, that he is so in love with himself and with the nature bent toward sin that he drinks iniquity like water. A man's heart is a vile pit of writhing and wiggling snakes, ready to strike and release the most poisonous phantom that would put a rattler to shame. Listen, friend, if you have a good opinion of yourself, then I feel sorry for you.

You'll never meet a more filthy wretch than the one who stares back at you in your bathroom mirror. I don't know why this is, but Baptists seem to have a better opinion of themselves and a poorer opinion of others. They don't hesitate to list all your faults to your face, but they are dead blind to their own faults.

All man is is a bag of wind and pride. We boast and brag when we should be repenting and humbling ourselves. The plague of the heart is a self-blinded plague.

I don't know if some of you have ever gone out hiking in the wilderness and you've had to ford a river. And that is the most dangerous backcountry hazard you'll ever find is river crossing. You always cross a river at its widest point, and you better look out for rapids and waterfalls and obstacles that will surely sink you.

I don't believe there are many of my hearers here who've ever tried to ford the crooked, muddy river that is your heart, which is so polluted and twisted that it makes the muddy Mississippi look like a mere stream. Your heart is deceitful, friend, above all things, and that covers all things this side of eternity. And if you only knew the depths of how desperately wicked your heart is, it would make the hair stand up on the back of your neck.

The plague of the heart, the poison in the blood. You are ruined and under a curse to such a degree that you have an inward disposition to sin and such flagrant rebellion against a holy God that you would make the demons blush. Brillo is supposed to enhance the gloss of all natural stone, but you can take your good opinion of yourself, friend, and polish it with Brillo until the cows come home.

And still the only reflection you will see would be awful enmity you have against God and all things holy. You have enough hatred and bitterness in you toward others that if looks could kill, you'd be stepping over corpses all throughout the week. You have enough pride in your heart to sink a battleship, and your tongue spews out bitter incursions like a frothy fountain, which spills over and taints all it comes in contact with.

Your eyes are full of lust and adultery, and your lips tell lies as quickly as rain falls on muddy ground. And you walk a slippery path of deceit because you are one person at church and quite another at home. Oh, friends, the plague of the heart.

And the Apostle Paul states in our text in Romans that it was through the offense of one man, and that was Adam, many be dead. That means dead in sin because of the poison in the blood of all men. Listen to me, friend.

You are not a sinner because you sin. Rather, you sin because you are a big sinner, a poison in the blood and under a curse. That is the lot of man born into this world.

King David declared, Behold, I was shaping an iniquity and in sin did my mother conceive me. David is saying that not only did I sin this once, but I am in my very nature a sinner. The very fountain of my life is polluted as well as the streams.

And listen to me, friend, because of that poison in the blood that festers and putrefies all it touches, there spills out enmity against the holy God. A man is at his very nature a rebel who hates all things holy. He has rebelled and committed treason against the sovereign, and all his offspring are nothing but rebels on the run from an offended God.

God is angry with the wicked every day. I don't care what your politically correct pastor tells you. You're not nice people, but you're ruined and with a depraved nature that turns on a dime in its rebellion against God.

Now, if you don't believe me about the nature of man, perhaps you will believe what God says about man. Left to himself, as described in Romans. Tell me if this isn't a headline from the front page of our newspaper, friends.

For this cause, God gave them up unto vile affections. For even their women did change the natural use that which is against nature. And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another.

Men with men, working that which is unseemly and receiving in themselves that recompense of their error which was meat. And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind to do those things which are not convenient. Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness, full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity, whisperers, backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, without understanding, covenant breakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful, who know of the judgment of God that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them.

A poison in the blood, enmity against God. I believe that one of the biggest crimes the church of today has committed is the omission of preaching this doctrine I'm bringing before you of man's total depravity and sinfulness. Rather, our pulpits today, friends, will tell you that man is alright, that man just needs a little improvement, he just needs a little salvation because he's not all that bad to begin with.

But the problem with that kind of preaching is that it produces folks who think they're not as bad as some other folks, and therefore they maintain a good opinion of themselves and see no need for daily repentance and obedience to a sovereign Lord who has rights and claims on a person's life. We've taken all the teeth out of the gospel and we've quit preaching the terrors of it to sinful man who's born a sinner with the same poison bloodstream of Adam. Old Adam didn't trip and only skin his knee in the Garden of Eden.

No, sir, Adam was like Humpty Dumpty on the wall, and when he fell, all the king's people and all the king's men couldn't put Humpty Dumpty back together again. Every single one of us deserves hell. If you're safe, friend, it's because you are an object of mercy.

We've looked at some pretty bad news about mankind tonight from Romans in regard to the plague of the heart and the poison in the blood. But our text in Romans 5.15 also has some good news, and that there is a gift by grace which is by one man, Jesus Christ, hath abounded unto many. There is a fountain filled with blood drawn from Emmanuel's veins, and sinners plunged beneath that flood lose all their guilty stains.

Get under the blood, friend, apply the only remedy for sin, the Lord Jesus Christ who taketh away the sins of the world. Heaven is gained one way through repentance toward God and faith in Jesus Christ. Let us pray.