Genesis 1:27
God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.
Message: The Heights from Which we have Fallen
What the Lord is Saying: It is clear from my study of the Bible, of these Gospels and even of the last two chapters of John 8 and 9 that many do not believe. They have a slant away from God. They are not trying to discover Him. They are people without a need for they believe they have the answers and their reason for talking about Jesus is to discredit Him and to add evidence or credence to their lives that He is not real and should be rejected as Lord and Savior. We describe these people being totally depraved. They don't want the things of God.
But in saying one is totally depraved, this does not mean a person is utterly depraved and has only evil in them. I believe all the good we describe in our world as good has as its author God. And so whatever is good is from God, even if the one giving the good may not acknowledge God. As today's verse says, every person has been created in the image of God and every person has the potential and will do good things as a God creation. For those that refuse to acknowledge God, there seems to be something in them that prevents them from this acknowledgement. They are depraved. Sin has darkened their understanding of Him. Depraved does not necessarily the person acts with evil as their ambition for their lives.
This is a hard lesson and many will not understand it because we hold onto this notion that people are good. People are good but their willingness to accept Jesus and live for Him above all things in life is what we are talking about here. We are talking about whether people will have a desire for spiritual things and desire to glorify God above everything else in their lives. We are talking about people and whether they will deny themselves and take up their cross. Yesterday, the pastor talked about sinners and I thought to myself that for one to come to know God they first must see that they are a sinner, that they are in need, that they are imperfect and need something more than themselves. That they don't have all the answers.
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Luke 11:11-13
11 Now suppose one of you fathers is asked by his son for a fish; he will not give him a snake instead of a fish, will he? 12 Or if he is asked for an egg, he will not give him a scorpion, will he? 13 If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him?”
Message: Utter Depravity
What the Lord is Saying: I have acknowledged that people can do good - be kind to others, even love unconditionally, and they can do these even unselfishly as well as selfishly. But their goal in doing these things is very often not to honor God. Even those who do evil often could have done more evil. We may think that what they have done is entirely evil, but it always could have been worse. Thus, utter depravity is always sinning to the greatest degree possible, again all of the time. But as Luke 11 shows, even those being evil still give good gifts to their children. Everyone has potential, but that doesn't mean everyone has a desire to please God with how they live.
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Romans 1:21-23
21 For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened. 22 Professing to be wise, they became fools, 23 and exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man and of birds and four-footed animals and crawling creatures.
Message: Radical Corruption
What the Lord is Saying: RC Sproul has mentioned that instead of saying with are totally depraved, perhaps we can use the phrase radical corruption. Every part of our being is corrupted, even though each of us has the ability and can still practice good. We are not evil to the fullest extent. And it is radical because sin has corrupted every part of our human nature. We are not simply creatures where we are looking for the good to outweigh the bad. We are bent away from God and the things that please him. We have to train ourselves to be Godly (I Timothy 4:7-8). We will do good out of fear of punishment, not necessarily out of love for God. In today's passage, even though we know God we don't thank Him for life and instead look inward to define life. We reason away him thinking we are being wise. My atheist friend in London does this all of the time. He believes I am gullible and he is smart. He has exchanged God for an animal to define man.
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Romans 1:24-31
24 Therefore God gave them over in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, so that their bodies would be dishonored among them. 25 For they exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen. 26 For this reason God gave them over to degrading passions; for their women exchanged the natural function for that which is unnatural, 27 and in the same way also the men abandoned the natural function of the woman and burned in their desire toward one another, men with men committing indecent acts and receiving in their own persons the due penalty of their error. 28 And just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God any longer, God gave them over to a depraved mind, to do those things which are not proper, 29 being filled with all unrighteousness, wickedness, greed, evil; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malice; they are gossips, 30 slanderers, haters of God, insolent, arrogant, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, 31 without understanding, untrustworthy, unloving, unmerciful;
Message: The "Normalcy" of Sin
What the Lord is Saying: One of the problems with total depravity or radical corruptness in the eyes of many is the fact that sin has somewhat been normalized and we in society often acknowledge certain sins as offensive like murder, but other sins that every one seems to commit like telling white lies or being disobedient to parents or even using God's name in a flippant manner like the slang, OM_, has made us complacent to the seriousness of sin and disobeying God. The Parable of the Tax Collector voices words from the Pharisee that he is not like the tax collector. He doesn't do the really bad stuff so he must be okay. And then he says he does do certain works to offset any bad that has been committed. What he fails to see is the holiness of God and His standard. The one-time sin is as great as the multiple sinful life. Many will agree with most of the sins listed here in Romans 1:29-31 like murder, but what about gossips or those even who are arrogant, boastful or lacking in understanding, do we often place those on a different chart of acceptable behavior?
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Romans 1:32
and although they know the ordinance of God, that those who practice such things are worthy of death, they not only do the same, but also give hearty approval to those who practice them.
Message: The Sinfulness of Sin
What the Lord is Saying: It is bad enough that we have normalized sin, but we take it a step further as Romans 1:32 states. The move of sin to acceptable behavior comes about when we come together in groups and sometimes simply one with another to agree over the sin. I think this is the move in society that we see to further normalize it. I think the homosexual and pride events that are now an annual celebration in our cities are a stark example of this, taking something that is blatantly wrong and we instead join forces to celebrate it, in the name of loving our neighbor. God loves us, but hates sin and nowadays society doesn't know how to separate those two ideas. And yet we even do this as Christians, sometimes in sharing prayer requests out of concern for our Christian brother it might move to pride that we are not like that other person and we are shocked by the sinfulness of their behavior. I must admit that I will often pick apart someone's behavior, getting others to agree with me - and all the while I can feel the Holy Spirit convicting me to not speak in this manner. I sense the Spirit providing a way out (I Cor 10:13) and yet the more I speak, the harder it is not to not speak.
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John 8:14
Jesus answered and said to them, “Even if I testify about Myself, My testimony is true, for I know where I came from and where I am going; but you do not know where I come from or where I am going.
Message: Enslaved to Sin
What the Lord is Saying: Many can acknowledge that we are all sinners, that we all disobey God. In sharing with people in an evangelism setting, people can admit often they have told a lie. I've mentioned previously that people are capable of doing good. God is good and all that He has created has been good and so anyone can be a conduit for this good. But the harder idea is moving to pleasing God. Mark 12:30 gives us the goal: "And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength." That move to all is the big step in us. God clearly wants this as we see numerous examples of this throughout the Old Testament. The issue here is we like to think that each of us is capable on our own to move us out of a bad situation. I love reading people's testimonies of how God has changed their lives. Often the one's that stand out are the people that have practices a very clear life of opposing God. And then to see the awakening that took place in their life. Some are moved to this awakening but others aren't. It seems clear that God sovereignty is the key that we often don't recognized or call to our attention. Lately I've been memorizing Ephesians 2:1-2, "And you were dead in your trespasses and sins, in which you formerly walking 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." This is a radical statement that I seriously wonder if many of us believe or can accept or even see. That we were spiritually dead and that this deadness was because of the prince of darkness and an evil spirit moving in people towards disobedience.
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Ephesians 2:1-10
1 And you were dead in your trespasses and sins, 2 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. 3 Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest. 4 But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, 5 even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), 6 and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, 7 so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. 8 For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; 9 not as a result of works, so that no one may boast. 10 For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.
Message: Total Moral Inability
What the Lord is Saying: I did not realize when I was writing earlier that this next lesson is on Ephesians 2. This is a powerful text. But this idea in verse 2 verses is people are enslaved and living in disobedience. What will make them change? Paul uses powerful language to say a person is dead. It seems consistent to Jesus saying one must be born again. What will shift them will be their faith in verse 8. But prior to that they are living on this earth - dead. A sober reality. A sober proclamation. But as I have seen, what changes in people is the Spirit of God awakening them. But how this is done I am not sure we are clear on. And so these lessons have yes chronicled the condition of people, that some are depraved or stated another way, radically corrupted. The world has corrupted their thinking. The prince of the power of the air has corrupted them. In our world we see those who are made alive in Christ and those who are not. I think we need to find the harvest and pray that the Lord would lead us to the harvest, that we might share with them to help them discover Jesus and the Savior he can be to their life. We are His workmanship (verse 10).
Note: If you are interested in other studies/devotions, check out my index of Bible Study's.
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