Man’s Total Depravity
Minister: |
Rev. Ronald Van Overloop |
Date: |
8/27/2017 PM
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Text:
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Genesis 6:5
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Psalters: |
273, 253, 146, 165 |
- The depravity.
- Total depravity means that man’s nature is corrupt, perverse, and sinful throughout.
- The unregenerate man is dead in sin, and his will is enslaved to his evil nature (Eph. 2:1-3).
- Zacchaeus was “lost” in sin, i.e., in a wretched and hopeless spiritual condition, unworthy to be saved (Luke 19:10).
- Through his willful fall into sin, Adam brought spiritual death on himself and all his posterity (Rom. 5:12; I Cor. 15:22).
- David confessed that he, as all other humans, was born into the sphere of sin (Ps. 51:5; 58:3).
- If any human is to be God’s child and enter His kingdom, they must be born anew by the Spirit (John 3:5-7).
- Consequently, man’s will is no longer free, but as a result of inherited depravity is in bondage to his sinful nature.
- The extent of the depravity.
- The reign of sin is universal, i.e., all are under its power; no one is righteous (I Kings 8:46; Ps. 143:2; Eccl. 7:20; Rom. 3:9-12).
- “Total” means: the whole of man’s being (every faculty) is completely affected by sin and everyone is as sinful as they can be.
- Scripture teaches that natural man is totally unable to do anything spiritually good.
- Man sins in everything he does.
- Man’s only hope is that Jesus came to save the lost, sinners, the ungodly.
- For a lost sinner to be saved, the Spirit must perform a rebirth, powerfully making the dead to be alive (John 3:3-6).
- This power has to come from outside the man, in fact, outside of the human race.
- Jesus came to seek the lost in order to save them.
- When we look at ourselves and our children, then salvation has to be nothing less than a work of the Almighty by His Spirit.