A natural man does not accept The things of the Spirit of God. their foolishness to him. He can't understand them. Why? Because they're spiritually examined, spiritually discerned, spiritually appraised, and guess what?
He is spiritually dead. Yeah. Welcome to Grace to You, featuring the Bible teaching of John MacArthur. I'm your host, Phil Johnson. When you hear a pastor or a Bible teacher say that the human race is totally depraved, what comes to your mind?
probably just small segments of humanity, career criminals, serial killers, ruthless tyrants, people as evil as they can be.
Well, the humbling fact is, we are all born totally depraved. But what exactly does that mean? find out today in John MacArthur's study called The Doctrines of Grace. As you'll see, the doctrine of total depravity is not so much about the intensity of every person's sin as it is about the extent of it and how helpless man is to save himself. And as surprising as it sounds, that truth is actually something you should cherish.
So follow along now as John begins the lesson. God must save us. He must choose us. Call us. Regenerate us.
Justify us. By his divine power, the Because we are neither willing Nor able. to do it for ourselves. And this takes us to what I'm going to call The doctrine of absolute inability. John 6, verse 64.
There are some of you who do not believe. Verse 64, verse 65, John 6, for this reason I've said to you, no one can come to me unless it's been granted him from the Father. And the point of all of this is you couldn't possibly come on your own. You are not willing or able. You're dead.
You're dead. John 8, 36. It's just a simple statement. If the Son shall make you free, You'll be really free. You're never going to be free unless the sun makes you free.
You, looking at it another way, from another analogy, are not only dead, you're a slave. You aren't going to be alive unless he makes you alive. You aren't going to be free unless he makes you free. And um Back in Matthew chapter 11. And uh I think it's verse 27.
Well, verse 25. carries on This same great thought. I praise thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth. That you did hide these things from the wise and intelligent, did reveal them to babes.
Now, what in the world is that saying? What it's saying is, God has decided himself to whom he will reveal the truth. And he has determined to hide it from the wise. Intelligent. And reveal it to babes.
Why did God do that? Verse 26, Yes, Father, for thus it was well pleasing in your sight. He did it because that pleased him. Then verse 27, All things have been handed over to me by my Father. No one knows the Son except the Father, nor does anyone know the Father except the Son, and anyone to whom the Son wills to reveal him.
It's very clear you're not going to come alive. You're not going to understand the truth. You're not going to believe. Unless the father wills. And yet, isn't it amazing?
Look at verse 28. And here's the constant paradox, apparent paradox. Come to me, all who are weary and heavy laden, and I'll give you rest. What an amazing thing. People always ask me, how do you resolve that?
I don't resolve that. I have no idea how to resolve that. The offer to come is is made universally. The power to come is limited to those whom the Father Listen. You're not going to find a text in which Jesus defends the ability of sinners.
You're not going to find those texts anywhere. Where he defends the freedom of their wills. Jesus is no Arminian. To further Answer the question: Can sinners' will And are they able? I want to turn Do an even deeper look at What it means to be the living dead.
Let me break it down. What does the Bible say about the human heart? Let's go back to Genesis 6. We'll do a couple of verses in the Old Testament. Just to show you the universal reality of this In Genesis 6.
Verse 5. Yeah, you're looking at the whole human race here. Since the fall, The Lord, verse 5. Let's just talk about the The heart. Yeah.
The Lord saw that the wickedness of man, was great on the earth. and that every Intent. of the thoughts of his heart. was only evil continually. Every Only Continually.
And the Lord was sorry he had made man on the earth. was graved in his heart. The biblical diagnosis of the human heart is that it's evil. More evil. And nothing but Evil.
And that's it. Jeremiah 17, 9. Jeremiah says, the heart of man is Deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. Psalm 143, 2 says, No man Living is righteous. And Proverbs 20, verse 9 asks this question: Who can say, I have cleansed my heart?
Wow. Who can say, I am pure from sin? Answer. Nobody. Nobody can say, I got my act together, I cleansed my heart, I made the right call.
Jeremiah 13, 23 asks this question, can the Ethiopian change his skin? Can the leopard Changes spots. The prophet then says, Then can you also do good? who are accustomed to doing evil. When you look at the biblical diagnosis of the human heart, there's just nothing there that can respond.
Desperately wicked. And what proceeds out of that heart is all the sins and iniquities that characterize it. And if you wanted to look biblically at the heart, you could find a lot of other passages on the heart, but let's talk about the mind. What about the mind? If the heart is something deep and the mind is maybe the superficial thinking, if we make any kind of distinction there, what about the mind?
I mean, can't we process this stuff and sort of overrule that internal evil? Can't we get our heads together and come up with some sound? Commitments on our own.
Well, Romans 1.28 said, God gave them over to a depraved mind, a reprobate mind. The word basically means a mind that doesn't function.
So the unregenerate have non-functioning minds insofar as God is concerned.
Furthermore, 2 Corinthians 4, 4 says, The God of this world has blinded their minds so that the glorious gospel cannot be comprehended. Look at Romans 8 for a moment, and again, this takes us further into the. Problem, Romans 8. Verse 5. Those who are according to the flesh?
set their minds on the things of the flesh. Those who are according to the Spirit, set their minds on the things of the Spirit. That's how it is. If you're according to the flesh, then your mind is devoted to the flesh. Verse 6 says, The mind set on the flesh is death.
There it is. That's characteristic of spiritual deadness. Your mind is set on the flesh. Verse 7: The mind set on the flesh is hostile toward God. Listen now.
It does not subject itself to the law of God, for it is not even able to do so. Verse eight: Those who are in the flesh cannot please God. I mean, that's that's a pretty airtight description. And I read you a little earlier from Ephesians chapter 4. Uh verses 17 and 18.
That the Gentiles walk in the futility of their mind or the emptiness of their mind. Darkened in their understanding, excluded from the life of God, because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the hardness of their hearts. And they are therefore given over to sensuality for the practice of every kind of impurity with greediness. Every description. Is the same.
Ignorant. Dark Futile, empty. Dead. And there's no relief no matter where you go in the Bible, it always comes out like this. to the defiled Titus 1:15, and unbelieving, nothing is pure, both their mind and their conscience are defiled.
Now the picture of the unregenerate is very bleak. One more passage, 1 Corinthians 2. 1 Corinthians 2. We could talk a lot about this whole passage, but just verse 14. A natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God.
Their foolishness to him. He can't understand them. Why? Because they're spiritually examined, spiritually discerned, spiritually appraised, and guess what? He is spiritually.
Dead. Martin Luther said, man is like a pillar of salt. It's like Lot's wife. Luther said, He's like a log, he's like a stone, he's like a lifeless statue which has neither eyes nor ears nor mouth, neither senses nor heart. Unless He is enlightened, converted, and regenerated by the Holy Spirit.
So there's no hope for the heart, no hope for the mind. And somebody might say, well, maybe down there somewhere there's a spark in the will. Really? Listen to John 8, 44. You're of your father the devil.
Ephesians 2, you're dead in trespasses and sin, ruled by the prince of the power of the air, same thing. You're of your father, the devil, and you will to do the desires of your father. He was a murderer from the beginning. He doesn't stand in the truth because there's no truth in him. Whenever he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own nature, for he's a liar and the father of lies.
And because I speak the truth, You don't believe me. You have a father at the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father. He's a murderer. He doesn't know the truth. He's a liar.
And so when I speak the truth, You don't believe me. Because you live in a world of satanic lies. You have no will. For the truth. You will to do the desires of your Father.
Paul in Romans 6:20 puts it this way: You are slaves of sin. And free In regard to righteousness, you can say to an unredeemed person, you. have a great freedom in life. You are completely free of anything righteous. You are.
Well out of this kind of heart, mind, and will. comes of course nothing but the things that please the father of the living dead. Satan. And so again we read in Mark 7. Similar to what I Read earlier in Matthew 15.
That which proceeds out of the man. is from his heart. Evil thoughts, fornications, thefts, murders, adulteries, deeds of coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness, all these things proceed from within.
Now it's a serious situation. And I just have one text that sums it up. Romans 3, and you, some of you knew I'd have to go there. But the Romans 3 sums it up in case somebody is still saying, but there must be something in there. Must be something in man.
That allows him to pursue. What is right? Romans three ten, as it is written, And this is a string of quotes taken from the Old Testament, so it's a universal diagnosis. As it is written, there is none righteous, and somebody would have said, except me. And so the Lord quickly said, No, not.
You There is none who understands, the natural man understands not the things of God. There is none who seeks for God. You say, wait, wait, wait, wait. In the Old Testament, there are those statements about if you seek me with all your heart. Folks, you can't seek him until he has already found you.
We love him because He first loved us. There is none who on his own seeks after God. They've all turned aside. They've all become useless. There is none who does good, not even one.
Their throat is an open grave. With their tongues, they keep deceiving. The poison of asps is under their lips, they're children of their father. Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed blood, destruction and misery in their paths.
The path of peace have they not known. There is no fear of God before their eyes. There's the basic description of. The living dead. By the way, this diagnosis of man has been the conviction of Christians through the centuries.
And you can read statements of the council at Dort. Westminster Confession and all kinds of other Theological creeds through history, and this is how man is understood. Biblically. This doctrine has been called total depravity, but I feel that total depravity is a misleading term. If you look up depravity in the dictionary, It's a synonym for viciousness.
It's a synonym for a Okay. Being vile. In fact, to be depraved according to the dictionary is to be um degraded, debased. Immoral to a dangerous degree. like rapists and serial killers.
The word depraved sort of connotes a level of evil that's just not applicable to everybody. To say someone is totally depraved, you know, you think of Jeffrey Dahmers or Charles Manson or.
Somebody who has not a vestige of human goodness. and void of all normal affection and restraint. To call someone totally depraved would set them outside normal people as vicious perverts. But that is not what is meant. when theologians refer to total depravity.
Because not everybody is as bad as they could be and not everybody is as bad as everybody else. What we're talking about here is what I've chosen to call absolute inability. What is true of everybody is we have no ability to respond to the gospel. We are completely unable to raise ourselves out of a state of death. We are completely unable to give our blind hearts sight.
We are completely unable to free ourselves from slavery to sin. We are completely unable to turn from ignorance to truth. We are completely unable to stop rebelling against God, stop being hostile to his word. We are not only unable, but we are unwilling to do that. unwilling to repent, unwilling to believe.
And if we are to repent and to believe, then it must be like it was for Lazarus. Where God who commands the dead to rise has to also give them. The power. And in 2 Timothy chapter 2, verse 25, Paul says That we are too. Treat people gently.
If perhaps God may grant them repentance. Wow, couldn't be clearer. Leading to the knowledge of the truth. They may come to their senses, escape from the snare of the devil. The only way you can escape from the snare of the devil is to come to your senses.
The only way you can come to your senses is to have the knowledge of the truth. The only way you can have the knowledge of the truth is if God grants you. Repentance. And Ephesians 2:89 again, for by grace are you saved through faith, that not of yourself. God has to grant the repentance, God has to grant the Faith.
And the core of this great truth is that God must Himself give life. to the dead. Regeneration is what theologians would call Monergistic. It is a work of God. Alone.
In regeneration, we are basically passive. It is when we have been awakened. and granted repentance and faith that it all comes together concurrently to bring about salvation. This is what the Bible teaches. And if you don't believe this, Then how can The biblical doctrine of man leave any possibility For his salvation.
Is God merely commanding sinners to do what they absolutely can't and won't do? I mean to me Denying this doctrine and then evangelizing is sort of like. Standing on a bridge over the rapids. Watching somebody bob up and down, screaming. and saying to them, I have good news for you.
If you can get yourself out of there, we'll dry you off. Yeah. Come on, get out of there. You can't get out of there. You're not offering him anything that he's capable of doing.
The gospel call with no power makes no sense. Do you mean to tell me that God Does no more For the believer than he has done for the multitudes who are now in hell. It's just that we somewhere found something in us. To come to life? Do you mean to tell me that God has done the very same thing for all who've ever lived, whether they be in heaven or in hell, and it was really up to us?
So everybody who's in hell just didn't have the will to swim? No. One final passage, Titus. Three.
Well, maybe. One more, but Close. Titus 3. Verse 3. 3.3, Titus 3.3.
When we were once foolish ourselves, Notice the condition, foolish. Titus 3.3. Disobedient. deceived enslaved to various lusts and pleasure, spending our life in Malice, that's evil. and envy.
Hateful. hating one another. It's pretty severe. Description. But When the kindness of God our Savior and his love for mankind appeared, Here it is.
He Saved. What? Uh Not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to his mercy by the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out upon us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior. He saved us. He saved us.
Not by anything we did. By mercy.
Now, just a closing comment on that.
Some people have tried to make regeneration This coming to life, a um A sort of preliminary work. to uh conversion. The idea is that regeneration happens, and then somewhere down the road, after you've been regenerated, you get saved. I don't buy that. The word regeneration used Here, verse 5, I just read it, Titus 3:5, Polyn Genesis.
is only used here. and in Matthew 19, 28 in an eschatological sense. But here is the only place in the Bible where you have the word regeneration connected to salvation. And please notice this: it is the washing of regeneration and the renewing of the Holy Spirit, or by the Holy Spirit. Regeneration and washing are the same thing, the same.
Glorious reality. You cannot be regenerated unless you've been washed. And therefore, regeneration and conversion occur simultaneously. You know, there are some people who even believe you can be regenerated and not yet saved. Yeah.
It is the washing of regeneration. Regeneration is that cleansing. It is that salvation. It is that conversion. It is that redemption.
It is that justification. It is that sanctification that all occurs. In the great miracle. At once. And it occurs.
Upon believing the scripture, so that we are born again or regenerated through the living and abiding word of God. You hear the gospel, you believe the gospel, because at that very moment, You are being regenerated, being washed, being converted, being redeemed, being ransomed, being justified, being sanctified. It all happens at once, just like it did for Lazarus. And out of the grave we come. And in the end.
All the glory, all the glory goes All of it. And we will spend the rest of our lives here and in eternity. giving him praise. Oh, the depth, says Paul. Of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God, how unsearchable are his judgments and unfathomable his ways.
Well, you camp on that, folks. If you can't quite figure this out and how it works in with whosoever will may call, may come. Just remember it is unsearchable and unfathomable. And he goes on to say: who has known the mind of the Lord or who became his counselor? Don't think you can fully figure it out, and you certainly can't give him your input on it.
Just know this. For from him, and through him, and to him are all things, to him be the glory for ever. Amen. And that's enough. Amen.
Let's pray. Father, we have covered so much in such a short time. May we all Revel In the glory that belongs to you. And the joy of our salvation. We pray for those who have not come to Christ, and we plead with them, we beg them to believe.
Knowing. that whoever comes you will receive. It's not for the sinner to wait and and wait and wonder. It's for the sinner to come. And ask.
And you work that perfectly with your glorious sovereign plan. Say amen. You're listening to Grace to You, featuring the Bible teaching of John MacArthur. Today, John continued his series titled The Doctrines of Grace.
Well, friend, we are two weeks into this study, but we barely scratched the surface of these profound truths. To help you dig even deeper into them, we have a brand new book by John called The Doctrines of Grace. Whether you're looking for excellent curriculum for your Bible study group, or maybe you're explaining the gospel to someone in your family, or if you're simply wrestling with these salvation truths yourself, I encourage you to get a copy of the Doctrines of Grace when you call or go online today. The phone number to call 80055 Grace and our website gty.org. The Doctrines of Grace costs twenty dollars and shipping is free.
This book looks at what Scripture says about man's sinfulness and the work Christ accomplished to save sinners. It's an ideal resource to review with someone you're discipling. Again, to order, call 80055 GRACE or you can shop online at gty.org. That's our website, gty.org. And when you visit there, be sure to catch up on any articles you may have missed on the Grace2 blog.
And remember, the blog articles are just some of the thousands of free resources available at our website. including more than 3,600 sermons that are free to download in both MP3 and written transcript format. That web address one more time, gty.
Now for the entire GraceTU staff, I'm Phil Johnson. Remember to watch Grace to U television this Sunday on DirecTV Channel 378. And make sure you're here next week when John MacArthur answers this question. For whom did Christ die? You might be surprised by the answer.
Be here for another half hour of Unleashing God's Truth one verse at a time on Monday's Grace to You.
